Theodore Roosevelt Quotes

A good man fallen among politicians.

That the politicians are permitted to carry on the same old disgraceful campaign from year to year is as insulting to the people as would be a gang of thieves coming back to a town they had robbed, staging a parade, and inviting the citizens to fall in and cheer.

[Describing member of Congress:] 80 percent were hypocrites. 80 percent, liars. 80 percent, serious sinners.... There is always boozing and floozing.

The cynical impudence with which the reformers have tried to manufacture an ideal statesman out of the late shady politician beats anything in novel-writing. They are making popular capital. They lie and maneuver just like candidates for office. The independents and reformers are as bad as the late lamented, and for the same reason. It pays.[

The Republicans have lost their way. Principle has been swapped for power, and they have gotten neither. They deserve to have lost.

Governor [Myron] Herrick is not a bad man; he is simply weak. He is one of those men who can do dishonest things honestly.

Some politicians denounce government in order to capture the government and then they turn around and expand the government.

We have no leadership, no captain at the helm as it were. We are, in effect, being led from disaster to disaster by a headless horseman run amok with stuffed pockets and an empty conscience.

It isn’t easy, but I guess I can understand why the good citizens of the hill country might let themselves be represented in Washington by a man who drinks too much. It isn’t easy, but I guess I can even understand why the good citizens of the hill country might even let themselves be represented by a man in Washington who carouses with city women while his wife and children are back here working the land. But, as God is my witness, I will never understand why the good people of the hill country would let themselves be represented by a man who takes female sheep up into the hills alone at night!

Damn the President! He is a cold-blooded, narrow-minded, prejudiced, obstinate, timid old psalm-singing Indianapolis politician

Pierce was...a small politician, of low capacity and mean surroundings, proud to act as the servile tool of men worse than himself but also stronger and abler. He was ever ready to do any work the slavery leaders set him.

Such is human nature, in the gigantic intellect, the envious temper, the ravenous ambition, and the rotten heart of Daniel Webster.

A political huckster, who lives upon the reputation as well as the wealth of his ancestors; intense egotism being the characteristic of his appearance, and selfishness that of his action.

The very men to whom the whole country looks to set an example …to accept … the personal inconvenience, are doing exactly the reverse …. They are cackling like wet hens to hold their special privilege.

... a grand national joke ... the greatest political Mr. Facingbothways this country has ever had.

Government has come to be a trade, and is managed solely on commercial principles. A man plunges into politics to make his fortune, and only cares that the world shall last his days.

Men such as they are, very naturally seek money or power; and power because it is as good as money,--the “spoils,” so called, “of office.” And why not? For they aspire to the highest, and this, in their sleep-walking, they dream is highest. Wake them, and they shall quit the false good, and leap to the true, and leave governments to clerks and desks.

In this cold and ruthless city [Washington DC] the center of hypocrisy is Capitol Hill

[Huey Long is] suffering from halitosis of the intellect. That's presuming Emperor Long has an intellect.

I am thoroughly convinced that he is a lawless individual bent on building up a reputation for himself as a great builder, even at the expense of the President and the country. I think he is the greatest threat today to the president's reelection.

Samuel J. Tilden says we are a nation of thieves and rascals. If that is so he ought to be President.

Congress—these, for the most part, illiterate hacks whose fancy vests are spotted with gravy, and whose speeches, hypocritical, unctuous, and slovenly, are spotted also with gravy of political patronage.

A ruthless partisan [who] does not have within his conscience those scruples which the country has a right to expect from the President of the United States.

The whole thing stamps the President (Theodore Roosevelt) as unreliable, a faker, and a humbug. For years he has indulged in lofty sentiments, and violates them all for the sake of satisfying his petty spite.... Thank God, he can't fool all the people all the time, and this country is fast awakening to the real character of this bloody hero of Kettle Hill.

For his own sordid ends The pulpit he ascends