“There is a tendency to believe that a hundred small men can furnish leadership equal to that of one big man. This is not so.”

– Ladies’ Homes Journal, May 1917

“No man ever really learned from books how to manage a governmental system….If he has never done anything but study books he will not be a statesman at all.”

– Atlantic Monthly, August 1890

“Bodily vigor is good, and vigor of intellect is even better, but far above is character.”

– The Outlook, March 31, 1900

“It is not what we have that will make us a great nation; it is the way in which we use it.”

– Dickinson, Dakota Territory, July 4, 1886

“It is a dredful misfortune for a man to grow to feel that his whole livelihood and whole happiness depend upon his staying in office.”

-San Francisco, California, May 14, 1903

“Alone of human beings the good and wise mother stands on a plane of equal honor with the bravest soldier; for she has gladly gone down to the brink of the chasm of darkness to bring back the children in whose hands rest the future of the years.”

– The Great Adventure, 1918

“Probably the best test of the true love of liberty in any country is the way in which minorities are treated in that country.”

– Sorbonne, Paris, France, April 23, 1910

“I have mighty little use for ethics that are applied with such inefficiency that no good results come.”

– Harvard University, December 14, 1910

“There is a certain tendency among excellent people to believe that everything can be accomplished by law; that when there is any wrong, it is due to what they call the state of society, and that there is immediate need for radical and sweeping changes in the social system.”

– Kansas City, Missouri, May 1, 1903

“Diplomacy is utterly useless where there is no force behind it; the diplomat is the servant, not the master, of the soldier.”

– Newport, Rhode Island, June 2, 1897

“I like to see Quentin practicing baseball. It gives me hope that one of my boys will not take after his father in this respect, and will prove able to play the national game.”

– Source 1, 2

“A man whose business is sedentary should get some kind of exercise if he wishes to keep himself in as good physical trim as his brethren who do manual labor.”

– An Autobiography, 1913.