Theodore Roosevelt Quotes

America was not discovered. America was built.

When President Teddy Roosevelt posed for the cameras astride a massive steam shovel during construction of the Panama Canal in 1906, it was more than a simple photo op. Though the scene was clearly staged, it symbolized a crucial moment in American history.

The life of men and women is so cheap and property is so sacred. There are so many of us for one job it matters little if 146 of us are burned to death.

Capital is reckless of the health or length of life of the laborer, unless under compulsion from society.

The loss of life will be irreplaceable.

The bulldozer and not the atomic bomb may turn out to be the most destructive invention of the 20th century

… a people occupied as we are in opening rivers, digging navigable canals, making roads

No nation owes more to the steel wheel on the steel rail though it is not always clear whether railways were built to unite Canada, or Canada was created to justify the rail building.

Since the day that we first trod the soil of these valleys, have we received any assistance from our neighbors? No, we have not. We have built our homes, our cities, have made our farms, have dug our canals and water ditches, have subdued this barren country, have fed the stranger, have clothed the naked, have immigrated the poor from foreign lands, have placed them in a condition to make all comfortable and have made some rich. We have fed the Indians to the amount of thousands of dollars yearly, have clothed them in part, and have sustained several Indian wars, and now we have built thirty-seven miles of railroad. All this having been done, are our cities, our counties and the Territory in debt? No, not the first dollar.

Capitalism in one century of growth has enormously increased its power, not only through expansion over the entire earth, but also through development into new forms

Along with independence of India from the British Colonial rule, physical and mental development of masses is necessary for rebuilding the nation

Still how unenlightened and ignorant are the very nations we term civilized!

I wish I could bring Stonehenge to Nyasaland to show there was a time when Britain had a savage culture.

Our overbuilt cities with their congestion, their trend to high office buildings and apartments, their complete indifference to the most elementary principles of civilian defense, their slums representing past neglect and greed, can to a considerable extent be rebuilt on better principles if we are smart enough to look the facts in the eye and brush off the Babbitts who hold that wherever the dirt flies there is progress. On the other hand, cities can not be revolutionized and turned into garden villages or green belts. In the suburbs and near-by country, however, we still have a chance to do the right thing without stultifying compromises....

The growth of New England was a result of the aggregate efforts of a busy multitude, each in his narrow circle toiling for himself, to gather competence or wealth. The expansion of New France was the achievement of a gigantic ambition striving to grasp a continent. It was a vain attempt.

Young man, there is America -- which at this day serves for little more than to amuse you with stories of savage men, and uncouth manners; yet shall, before you taste of death, show itself equal to the whole of that commerce which now attracts the envy of the world.

The greatness of the Erie Canal is the American equal only of its equality and liberty.

Development has to rise if population is going to increase, Otherwise people will starve and all kinds of other problems.

It is wrong to blame the problems of today's Africa entirely on colonialism. Much of history consists of peoples conquering or colonizing each other. Yet, from Ireland to South Korea, countries that were once ruthlessly colonized have nonetheless managed to build reasonably just and democratic societies.

The ancient city Aqpu, where kings who had preceded me had built, had deteriorated and turned into ruined hills. I rebuilt the city completely, decorated it and made it bigger than it was before. I then built my palace.

Africa, Asia and the Middle East—the lands of the rising people.

… the many armed conflicts which continue to afflict the world today present us daily with dramatic images of misery, hunger, illness and death. Without peace, there can be no form of economic development.  Violence never begets peace, the necessary condition for development.

Our only crime consisted of decreeing our own laws and applying them to all without exception. Our crime is having enacted an agrarian reform which effected the interests of the United Fruit Company. Our crime is wanting to have our own route to the Atlantic, our own electric power and our own docks and ports. Our crime is our patriotic wish to advance, to progress, to win economic independence to match our political independence. We are condemned because we have given our peasant population land and rights.

Most depictions of early America as a garden of opportunity airbrush indentured servants out of the picture while focusing on the minority who arrived free.

The remarkable economic development of their country under Japanese auspices has not, however, escaped the bitter criticism of the Formosan Chinese. Japan's policy, they believe, is simply that of vicious exploitation. In the early days of the occupation they were robbed of the richest lands in the island by terror and chicanery. The Japanese Government has monopolized the production and sale of camphor, tobacco, salt, opium, sake, and other spirits, the most profitable Formosan industries. The Formosans claim that their resources and labor are exploited by Japanese capitalists, and that the tariff laws give Japan a monopoly of the market and compel them to pay monopoly prices. In a word, it is their belief that the Japanese and a few rich Formosans whose political support they have purchased are the only ones who profit by the development of the country..