Historian Quotes

“Every expansion of civilization makes for peace. In other words, every expansion of a great civilized power means a victory for law, order, and righteousness. ...It is only the warlike power of a civilized people that can give peace to the world.”

“It is better to be faithful than famous.”

“Property belongs to man and not man to property.”

“Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.”

“We want men who will fix their eyes on the stars, but who will not forget that their feet must walk on the ground.”

“I have always said I would not have been President had it not been for my experience in North Dakota.”

“No nation deserves to exist if it permits itself to lose the stern and virile virtues; and this without regard to whether the loss is due to the growth of a heartless and all-absorbing commercialism, to prolonged indulgence in luxury and soft, effortless ease, or to the deification of a warped and twisted sentimentality.”

“Nothing worth having comes easy.”

“I am a part of everything that I have read.”

“Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.”

“The effort to make financial or political profit out of the destruction of character can only result in public calamity. Gross and reckless assaults on character, whether on the stump or in newspaper, magazine, or book, create a morbid and vicious public sentiment, and at the same time act as a profound deterrent to able men of normal sensitiveness and tend to prevent them from entering the public service at any price.”

“Nothing worth having was ever achieved without effort.”

“It is not the critic who counts...The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.”

“Not trying is the surest way of achieving nothing at all.”

“Compromise" is so often used in a bad sense that it is difficult to remember that properly it merely describes the process of reaching an agreement. Naturally there are certain subjects on which no man can compromise. For instance, there must be no compromise under any circumstances with official corruption, and of course no man should hesitate to say as much.”

“I think there is only one quality worse than hardness of heart and that is softness of head.”

“It is time for us now as a nation to exercise the same reasonable foresight in dealing with our great natural resources that would be shown by any prudent man in conserving and widely using the property which contains the assurance of well-being for himself and his children.”

“The one characteristic more essential than any other is foresight... It should be the growing nation with a future which takes the long look ahead.”

“If I have erred, I err in company with Abraham Lincoln.”

“It is not often that a man can make opportunities for himself. But he can put himself in such shape that when or if the opportunities come he is ready.”

“Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of today.”

“My hat is in the ring.”

“The modern naturalist must realize that in some of its branches his profession, while more than ever a science, has also become an art.”

“If a strong man has not in him the lift toward lofty things, his strength makes him only a curse to himself and his neighbor.”

“Men can never escape being governed. Either they must govern themselves or they must submit to being governed by others.”