Theodore Roosevelt Quotes

We demand that big business give the people a square deal; in return we must insist that when anyone engaged in big business honestly endeavors to do right he shall himself be given a square deal.

With deregulation, one sector of the economy after another is "liberated" to capital's unmonitored authority. The very notion that there is a public interest is contested…. Deregulation has been, above all else, a means of reducing corporate business's accountability to the public.

Only the corporation that shirks from the light would have anything to fear from government. About the welfare of such corporations we need not be over-sensitive.

If our great corporations would more scrupulously observe their legal limitations and duties, they would have less cause to complain of the unlawful limitations of their rights or of violent interference with their operations.

It's appropriate for people to pursue their profit motive in business. If you want to change that, you're going against human nature. But when it comes to setting the rules or creating the institutions, then you should have the general interest at heart.

The future will find one of its great problems is deciding how big a business enterprise must become before the public is entitled to know the full details of its management.

In America, we no longer have an institutionalized, organized way of calling business to task - of taking them to account for what they've done - and this is especially true in the cultural realm.

Executives can no longer hide behind the corporate veil. They need to be accountable for what their companies do, because entities are responsible for socially irresponsible behavior.

There isn't one thing the federal government does that anybody in Big Business would emulate, at least not in the profit sector.

I often say that shareholders should feel very responsible for how responsive corporations are to the public trust.

The question is, do corporate executives, provided they stay within the law, have responsibilities in their business activities other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible? And my answer to that is, no they do not.

I do not dread these corporations as instruments of power to destroy this country, because there are a thousand agencies which can regulate, restrain and control them.

The notion that a business is clothed with a public interest and has been devoted to the public use is little more than a fiction intended to beautify what is disagreeable to the sufferers.

The importance of supervising the business of great railways and industrial combinations and the necessary investigation and prosecution of unlawful business methods are another necessary tax upon Government which did not exist half a century ago.

Leaders must be reminded that Businesses exist for the service of men.

Let business oversee itself.

All businesses that create wealth, pay their taxes and comply with the law are, by definition, good companies.

Technical problems can be remediated. A dishonest corporate culture is much harder to fix.

The great corporations which we have grown to speak of rather loosely as trusts are the creatures of the State, and the State not only has the right to control them, but it is duty bound to control them wherever the need of such control is shown.

We need new laws to rein in the forces of greed and to curb those ingenious legal advisors of the holders of vast corporate wealth.

You can't just let companies self-regulate, and I've gotta think they get that, too.

Lawmakers must stand up for companies that choose public safety over profit margins.

Doing good business - being ethical, being transparent, being caring, implementing values in your business - makes a difference, and you make money at the same time.

Companies and leaders are role models - not just with the business community - but in the broader world.

Understanding how your business affects human rights and using that knowledge to shape appropriate policies and practices is crucial to achieving what should be the goal of all corporations - sustainable growth.