“When any public man says that he ‘will never compromise under any conditions,’ he is certain to receive the applause of a few emotional people who do not think correctly, and the one fact about him that can be instantly asserted as true beyond peradventure is that,
if he is a serious personage at all, he is deliberately lying.”

– The Outlook, July 28, 1900

“I should heartily despise the public servant who failed to do his
duty because it might jeopardize his own future.”

– Letter of February 21, 1899

“I am an optimist, but I hope I am a reasonably intelligent one. I recognize that all the time there are numerous evil forces at work, and that in places and at times they outweigh the forces that tend for good. Hitherto, on the whole, the
good have come out ahead, and I think that they will in the future.”

– Letter to Owen Wister, February 27, 1895

“Success – the real success – does not depend upon the position
you hold, but upon how you carry yourself in that position.”

– University of Cambridge, England, May 26, 1910

“When we come to dealing with our social and industrial needs, remedies, rights and wrongs, a ton of oratory is not worth an ounce of hard-headed, kindly common sense.”

– Chicago, Illinois, September 3, 1900

“A man must have in him a strong and earnest sense of duty and the desire to accomplish good for the commonwealth, without regard to the effect upon himself, to be useful in Congress.”

– Harvard Graduates’ Magazine, October 1892

“I am not trying to be subtle or original. I am trying to make the plain everyday citizen here in America stand for the things which
I regard as essential to good government.”

– Ladies’ Home Journal, October 1916

“The only proper rule is never fight at all if you can honorably avoid it, but never under any circumstances to fight in a half-hearted way.”

– Foes of Our Own Household, 1917

“The steady aim of this nation, as of all enlightened nations, should be to strive to bring nearer the day when there shall prevail throughout the world the peace of justice.”

– Annual Address to Congress, December 6, 1904

“Conservation means development as much as it does protection. I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop and use the natural resources of our land; but I do not recognize the right to waste them, or to rob, by wasteful use, the generations that come after us.”

– Osawatomie, Kansas, August 31, 1910

“Let the watchwords of all our people be the old familiar watchwords of honesty, decency, fair-dealing, and common sense.”

– Syracuse, New York, September 7, 1903

“Power undirected by high purpose spells calamity, and high purpose by itself is utterly useless if the power to put it into effect is lacking.”

– The Outlook, September 9, 1911