1
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better
Theodore Rooseveltverified·Citizenship in a Republic, in African and European Addresses·April 23, 1910
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2
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming
Theodore Rooseveltverified·Citizenship in a Republic, in African and European Addresses·April 23, 1910
3
Other decent men are so alienated by such conduct that in their turn they abandon all effort to fight for reform, believing reformers to be either hypocrites or fools.
4
A mere life of ease is not in the end a very satisfactory life, and, above all, it is a life which ultimately unfits those who follow it for serious work in the world.
Theodore Rooseveltverified·The Strenuous Life, an address before the Hamilton Club, Chicago·April 10, 1899
5
Freedom from effort in the present merely means that there has been stored up effort in the past.
Theodore Rooseveltverified·The Strenuous Life, an address before the Hamilton Club, Chicago·April 10, 1899
6
In this life we get nothing save by effort.
Theodore Rooseveltverified·The Strenuous Life, an address before the Hamilton Club, Chicago·April 10, 1899
7
There is a bit of homely philosophy, quoted by Squire Bill Widener, of Widener's Valley, Virginia, which sums up one's duty in life: Do what you can, with what you've got, where you are.
Wrongly attributed
Roosevelt did not coin this. He quotes it in his Autobiography and names its author: Squire Bill Widener of Widener's Valley, Virginia, a neighbour with no other claim on posterity. It is now printed on posters and mugs as Roosevelt's own, usually shortened to Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. The sentence around it is the evidence that it was never his.