12 Theodore Roosevelt Quotes on Effort

Theodore Roosevelt quotes on effort

4. I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life.

14. Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.

20. It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.

37. In life, as in a football game, the principle to follow is: Hit the line hard.

73. Freedom from effort in the present merely means that there has been effort stored up in the past.

77. I am only an average man but, by George, I work harder at it than the average man.

80. 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.

91. It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.

92. It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.

96. Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering.

98. No great intellectual thing was ever done by great effort.

137. When you play, play hard; when you work, don't play at all.