Theodore Quotes

When will we make the same breakthroughs in the way we treat each other as we have made in technology? ~ Theodore Zeldin

Too much reality can be a dazzle, a surfeit;Too close immediacy an exhaustion ~ Theodore Roethke

It is a sad thing to want for happiness, but it is a terrible thing to see another groping about blindly for it, when it is almost within the grasp. ~ Theodore Dreiser

I am part of everything that I have read. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

The books that help you most are those which make you think the most. A great book that comes from a great thinker is a ship of thought, deep freighted with truth and beauty.
1810-1860, Minister ~ Theodore Parker

The bulk of government is not legislation but administration. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

We walked out of there, and for the first time I felt the mood of a night without feeling that an author was ramming it down my throat for story purposes. I looked at the clean-swept, star-reaching cubism of the Radio City area and its living snakes of neon, and I suddenly thought of an Evelyn Smith story the general idea of which was "After they found out the atom bomb was magic, the rest of the magicians who enchanted refrigerators and washing machines and the telephone system came out into the open." I felt a breath of wind and wondered what it was that had breathed. I heard the snoring of the city and for an awesome second felt it would roll over, open its eyes, and ... speak. ~ Theodore Sturgeon

Although I am deeply grateful to a great many people, I forgo the temptation of naming them for fear that I might slight any by omission. ~ Theodore Bikel

Music escapes ideological characterization. Just as there are some social scientists who believe that what cannot be measured does not truly exist, and some psychologists used to believe that consciousness does not exist because it cannot be observed by instruments, so ideologists find anything that escapes their conceptual framework threatening - because ideologists want a simple principle, or a few simple principles, by which all things may be judged. When I was a student, I lived with a hard-line dialectical materialist who said that Schubert was a typical petit bourgeois pessimist, whose music would die out once objective causes for pessimism ceased to exist. But I suspect that even he was not entirely happy with this formulation. ~ Theodore Dalrymple

Nature, machine-like, works definitely and heartlessly, if in the main beautifully. Hence, if we, as individuals, do not make this dream of a god or what he stands for us real in our thoughts and deeds, then he is not real or true. ~ Theodore Dreiser

The union of men in large masses is indispensable to the development and rapid growth of the higher faculties of men. Cities have always been the fireplaces of civilization whence light and heat radiated out into the dark cold world. ~ Theodore Parker

We fail to see the purifying and refining effect wrought by the flames of adversity. These flames are not meant to consume but only to purify us. Disguised as adversity, blessings are showered upon us. ~ A. Theodore Tuttle

Modern American liberalism is nothing but the socialism too stupid to recognize itself in the mirror. ~ Theodore Beale

It is an incalculable added pleasure to any one's sum of happiness if he or she grows to know, even slightly and imperfectly, how to read and enjoy the wonder-book of nature. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Credit should go with the performance of duty, and not with what is very often the accident of glory. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

I am filled with awe that filmmakers have the capacity to stir us and give us back a sense of wonder. ~ Theodore Bikel

Such a large sweet fruit is a complete marriage, that it needs a very long summer to ripen in and then a long winter to mellow and season it. ~ Theodore Parker

Most people say that as you get old, you have to give up things. I think you get old because you give up things. ~ Theodore F. Green

Nicely, thank you, Mr. Laurence. But I am not Miss March, I'm only Jo," returned the young lady.
"I'm not Mr. Laurence, I'm only Laurie."
"Laurie Laurence, what an odd name."
"My first name is Theodore, but I don't like it, for the fellows called me Dora, so I made them say Laurie instead."
"I hate my name, too, so sentimental! I wish every one would say Jo instead of Josephine. How did you make the boys stop calling you Dora?"
"I thrashed 'em."
"I can't thrash Aunt March, so I suppose I shall have to bear it." And Jo resigned herself with a sigh ~ Louisa May Alcott

Want More Advice Like This? ~ Theodore Roosevelt

To exist as a nation, to prosper as a state, and to live as a people, we must have trees. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

What's freedom for? To know eternity. ~ Theodore Roethke

I don't pity any man who does hard work worth doing. I admire him. I pity the creature who does not work, at whichever end of the social scale he may regard himself as being. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

In speaking to you men of the greatest city of the West, men of the state which gave to the country Lincoln and Grant, men who preeminently and distinctly embody all that is most American in the American character, I wish to preach not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

There is no effort without error or shortcoming. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

THE DAY

The day was a year at first
When children played in the garden;

The day shrank down to a month
When the boys played ball;

The day was a week thereafter
When young men walked in the garden;

the day was itself a day
when love grew tall

the day shrank down to an hour
when old man limped in the garden

The day will last forever
When it is nothing at all. ~ Theodore Spencer

Books are the ammunition of life. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Every lynching represents by just so much a loosening of the bands of civilisation; that the spirit of lynching inevitably throws into prominence in the community all the foul and evil creatures who dwell therein. No man can take part in the torture of a human being without having his own moral nature permanently lowered ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Necessity starves on the stoop of invention. ~ Theodore Roethke

A man can of course hold public office, and many a man does hold public office, and lead a public career of a sort, even if there are other men who possess secrets about him which he cannot afford to have divulged. But no man can lead a public career really worth leading, no man can act with rugged independence in serious crises, nor strike at great abuses, nor afford to make powerful and unscrupulous foes, if he is himself vulnerable in his private character. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Corinne suggested a different reason, indicating that her dying father had expressed concern about Theodore's intimacy with Edith, given Charles Carow's fiscal and temperamental instability. If Theodore discussed the issue with Edith that night, he might well have triggered the volatility that he would obscurely explain to Bamie as a clash of tempers "that were far from being of the best. ~ Doris Kearns Goodwin

The diamond which shines in the Saviour's crown shall burn in unquenched beauty at last on the forehead of every human soul. ~ Theodore Parker

Intergrity is not only teh way one thinks but even moer the way one acts. ~ Theodore Wilhelm Engstrom

Feeling good about yourself is not the same thing as doing good. Good policy is more important than good feelings. ~ Theodore Dalrymple

Yes, Haven, most of us enjoy preaching, and Ive got such a bully pulpit! ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Pain wanders through my bones like a lost fire ~ Theodore Roethke

The stream will not permanently rise higher than the main source; and the main source of national power and national greatness is found in the average citizenship of the nation. Therefore it behooves us to do our best to see that the standard of the average citizen is kept high; and the average cannot be kept high unless the standard of the leaders is very much higher. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

When exactly did this downward cultural spiral begin, this loss of tact and refinement and understanding that some things should not be said or directly represented? When did we no longer appreciate that to dignify certain modes of behavior, manners, and ways of being with artistic representation was implicitly to glorify and promote them? There is, as Adam Smith said, a deal of ruin in a nation: and this truth applies as much to a nation's culture as to its economy. The work of cultural destruction, while often swifter, easier, and more self-conscious than that of construction, is not the work of a moment. Rome wasn't destroyed in a day. ~ Theodore Dalrymple

Every man among us is more fit to meet the duties and responsibilities of citizenship because of the perils over which, in the past, the nation has triumphed; because of the blood and sweat and tears, the labor and the anguish, through which, in the days that have gone, our forefathers moved on to triumph. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

I went back every evening, after work, for nearly a year. I learned the meaning of the cud of a leaf and the glisten of wet pebbles, and the special significance of curves and angles. A great deal of the writing was unwritten. Plot three dots on a graph and join them; you now have a curve with certain characteristics. Extend that curve while maintaining the characteristics, and it has meaning, up where no dots were plotted.

In just this way I learned to extend the curve of a grass-blade and of a protruding root, of the bent edges of wetness on a drying headstone. I quit smoking so I could sharpen my sense of smell, because the scent of earth after a rain has a clarifying effect on graveyard reading, as if the page were made whiter and the ink darker. I began to listen to the wind, and to the voices of birds and small animals, insects and people; because to the educated ear, every sound is filtered through the story written on graves, and becomes a part of it.

("The Graveyard Reader") ~ Theodore Sturgeon

Rebellion against technology and civilization is real rebellion, a real attack on the values of the existing system. But the green anarchists, anarcho-primitivists, and so forth (The "GA Movement") have fallen under such heavy influence from the left that their rebellion against civilization has to great extent been neutralized. Instead of rebelling against the values of civilization, they have adopted many civilized values themselves and have constructed an imaginary picture of primitive societies that embodies these civilized values. ~ Theodore Kaczynski

Good magic opens the mysteries to all; bad magic seeks simply to mystify. ~ Theodore Roszak

Always inflation comes gradually; is recognized too late; and can be cured only by ruthless political surgery, which, if delayed too long, proves futile ... ~ Theodore White

Timothy, are you still black? ~ Theodore Taylor

Not much has been written about the Nereids of modern Greece. Wherever there is a warm, healing stream they believe that it flows from the breasts of the Nereids. ~ James Theodore Bent

When the time of danger comes, all Americans, whatever their social standing, whatever their creed, whatever the training they have received, no matter from what section of the country they have come, stand together as men, as Americans, and are content to face the same fate and do the same duties because fundamentally they all alike have the common purpose to serve the glorious flag of their common country. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Mankind never loses any good thing, physical, intellectual, or moral, till it finds a better, and then the loss is a gain. No steps backward is the rule of human history. What is gained by one man is invested in all men, and is a permanent investment for all time. ~ Theodore Parker

Where has he gone, my meadow mouse,
My thumb of a child that nuzzled in my palm?
To run under the hawk's wing,
Under the eye of the great owl watching from the elm-tree,
To live by courtesy of the shrike, the snake, the tom-cat.
(from "The Meadow Mouse") ~ Theodore Roethke

There are two kinds of editors, those who correct your copy and those who say it's wonderful. ~ Theodore White

As ever, books remained a medium through which Theodore and Edith connected and interpreted larger world. ~ Doris Kearns Goodwin

In the Grand Canyon, Arizona has a natural wonder which is in kind absolutely unparalleled throughout the rest of the world. I want to ask you to keep this great wonder of nature as it now is. I hope you will not have a building of any kind, not a summer cottage, a hotel or anything else, to mar the wonderful grandeur, the sublimity, the great loneliness and beauty of the canyon. Leave it as it is. You cannot improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

We should abolish 'work.' By that I mean abolishing the distinction between work and leisure, one of the greatest mistakes of the last century, one that enables employers to keep workers in lousy jobs by granting them some leisure time. ~ Theodore Zeldin

The only thing that is stuck is your mind, and you have all the power in the world to change it. ~ Theodore Volgoff

No doubt, unity is something to be desired, to be striven for, but it cannot be willed by mere declarations. ~ Theodore Bikel

Feeling angry is a universal human phenomenon. It is as basic as feeling hungry, lonely, loving, or tired. The capacity to feel angry and to respond in some way to that feeling is in us from birth. ~ Theodore Isaac Rubin

1. The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. They have greatly increased the life-expectancy of those of us who live in "advanced" countries, but they have destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling, have subjected human beings to indignities, have led to widespread psychological suffering (in the Third World to physical suffering as well) and have inflicted severe damage on the natural world. The continued development of technology will worsen the situation. It will certainly subject human beings to greater indignities and inflict greater damage on the natural world, it will probably lead to greater social disruption and psychological suffering, and it may lead to increased physical suffering even in "advanced" countries. ~ Theodore John Kaczynski

The possibility of circular reasoning arises-that is, using the temperature record to derive a key input to climate models that are then tested against the temperature record. ~ Theodore Wilbur Anderson

Families have become models for public life, constructing friendships between individuals of different temperaments, ambitions and ages, even if they are often unsuccessful. People now want, above all, appreciation of their uniqueness. ~ Theodore Zeldin

Anything that encourages pauperism, anything that relaxes the manly fiber and lowers self-respect, is an unmixed evil. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

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. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Exalt the Cross! God has hung the destiny of the race upon it. Other things we may do in the realm of ethics, and on the lines of philanthropic reforms; but our main duty converges into setting that one glorious beacon of salvation, Calvary's Cross, before the gaze of every immortal soul. ~ Theodore L. Cuyler

I wish that all Americans would realize that American politics is world politics. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Power always brings with it responsibility. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Only what we have lost forever do we possess forever. Only when we have drunk from the river of darkness can we truly see. Only when our legs have rotted off can we truly dance. As long as there is death, there is hope ~ Brother Theodore

The dull, purblind folly of the very rich men, their greed and arrogance, and the corruption in business and politics, have tended to produce a very unhealthy condition. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Wealth and want equally harden the human heart. ~ Theodore Parker

It is impossible to win the great prizes of life without running risks, and the greatest of all prizes are those connected with the home. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

The use of great men is to serve the little men, to take care of the human race, and act as practical interpreters of justice and truth. ~ Theodore Parker

People will love him (Theodore Roosevelt) for the enemies he has made. ~ Doris Kearns Goodwin

Art is the means we have of undoing the damage of haste. It's what everything else isn't. ~ Theodore Roethke

Wild flowers should be enjoyed unplucked where they grow. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Forks and spoons have probably done more to reconcile people who cannot agree than guns and bombs ever did ~ Theodore Zeldin

Original sin," he said thoughtfully. "That's about Adam an' - no, wait. I remember. Everybody's supposed to be sinful to start with because it takes a sin to get'm started. ~ Theodore Sturgeon

Right here let me make as vigorous a plea as I know how in favor of saying nothing that we do not mean, and of acting without hesitation up to whatever we say. A good many of you are probably acquainted with the old proverb: 'Speak softly and carry a big stick
you will go far.' If a man continually blusters, if he lacks civility, a big stick will not save him from trouble; and neither will speaking softly avail, if back of the softness there does not lie strength, power. In private life there are few beings more obnoxious than the man who is always loudly boasting; and if the boaster is not prepared to back up his words his position becomes absolutely contemptible. So it is with the nation. It is both foolish and undignified to indulge in undue self-glorification, and, above all, in loose-tongued denunciation of other peoples. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

It tires me to talk to rich men. You expect a man of millions, the head of a great industry, to be a man worthhearing; but as a rule they don't know anything outside their own business. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt was a conservative who adopted progressive policies. ~ Walter Lippmann

The mass of the American people are most emphatically not in the deplorable condition of which you speak. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

In the great battle of life, no brilliancy of intellect, no perfection of bodily development, will count when weighed in the balance against the assemblage of virtues, active and passive, of moral qualities which we group together under the name of character. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

The civilized people of today look back with horror at their medieval ancestors who wantonly destroyed great works of art or sat slothfully by while they destroyed. We have passed this stage ... Here in the U.S. we turn our rivers and streams into sewers and dumping grounds, we pollute the air, we destroy our forests and exterminate fishes, birds and mammals - not to speak of vulgarizing charming landscapes with hideous advertisements. But at best it looks as if our people were awakening. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

We have become great because of the lavish use of our resources ... But the time has come to inquire seriously what will happen when our forests are gone, when the coal, the iron, the oil and the gas are exhausted. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Fourth Meditation"

1

I was always one for being alone,
Seeking in my own way, eternal purpose;
At the edge of the field waiting for the pure moment;
Standing, silent, on sandy beaches or walking along green embankments;
Knowing the sinuousness of small waters:
As a chip or shell, floating lazily with a slow current...

Was it yesterday I stretched out the thin bones of my innocence?
O the songs we hide, singing only to ourselves!
Once I could touch my shadow, and be happy;
In the white kingdoms, I was light as a seed,
Drifting with the blossoms,
A pensive petal.

But a time comes when the vague life of the mouth no longer suffices;
The dead make more impossible demands from their silence;
The soul stands, lonely in its choice,
Waiting, itself a slow thing,
In the changing body.

The river moves, wrinkled by midges,
A light wind stirs in the pine needles.
The shape of a lark rises from a stone;
But there is no song. ~ Theodore Roethke

Surely our people do not understand even yet the rich heritage that is theirs. There can be nothing in the world more beautiful than the Yosemite, the groves of giant sequoias and redwoods, the Canyon of the Colorado, the Canyon of the Yellowstone, the Three Tetons; and our people should see to it that they are preserved for their children and their children's children forever, with their majesty all unmarred. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Nine-tenths of wisdom is being wise in time. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

We are now in a position to determine just what sort of science fiction story this really is. ~ Theodore Sturgeon

The evils of envy and hatred masquerading as humanitarian idealism had darkened his life from its outset, stamping him as a man quick to search for the reality behind the expression of fine sentiments. ~ Theodore Dalrymple

People do not consciously and rationally choose the form of their society. Societies develop through processes of social evolution that are not under rational human control. ~ Theodore Kaczynski

The amount of understanding produced by a theory is determined by how well it meets the criteria of adequacy–testability, fruitfulness, scope, simplicity, conservatism–because these criteria indicate the extent to which a theory systematizes and unifies our knowledge. ~ Theodore Schick Jr.

The need always to lie and always to avoid the truth stripped everyone of what Custine called 'the two greatest gifts of God-the soul and the speech which communicates it.' People became hypocritical, cunning, mistrustful, cynical, silent, cruel, and indifferent to the fate of others as a result of the destruction of their own souls. ~ Theodore Dalrymple

The poet: would rather eat a heart than a hambone. ~ Theodore Roethke

Deep in their roots all flowers keep the light. ~ Theodore Roethke

Reading through the reviews, I feel as though I am witnessing a much more erudite and informed preview of the Fox News/MSNBC shouting matches of today. ~ Theodore H. White

I like to see Quentin (Roosevelt) 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. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Perhaps we have been guilty of speaking against someone and have not realized how it may have hurt them. Then when someone speaks against us, we suddenly realize how deeply such words hurt, and we become sensitive to what we have done. ~ Theodore Epp

The chase is among the best of all national pastimes; it cultivates that vigorous manliness for the lack of which in a nation, as in an individual, the possession of no other qualities can possibly atone. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Not until Theodore Roosevelt resigned his prestigious position as assistant secretary of the navy in 1898 to fight with the Rough Riders in the Cuban dirt would there be a rich man as weirdly rabid to join American forces in combat as Lafayette was. The two shared a child's ideal of manly military glory. Though in Lafayette's defense, he was an actual teenager, unlike the thirty-nine-year-old TR. ~ Sarah Vowell

All constitutions, those of the States no less than that of the nation, are designed, and must be interpreted and administered so as to fit human rights. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

The great man is to be the servant of mankind, not they of him. ~ Theodore Parker

The good citizen will demand liberty for himself, and as a matter of pride he will see to it that others receive the liberty which he thus claims as his own. Probably the best test of true love of liberty in any country is the way in which minorities are treated in that country. Not only should there be complete liberty in matters of religion and opinion, but complete liberty for each man to lead his life as he desires, provided only that in so doing he does not wrong his neighbor. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Men can never escape being governed. Either they must govern themselves or they must submit to being governed by others. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Havana is like Beirut, without having gone through the civil war to achieve the destruction. ~ Theodore Dalrymple