10 Theodore Roosevelt Quotes on Ethics

Theodore Roosevelt quotes on ethics

10. Probably the greatest harm done by vast wealth is the harm that we of moderate means do ourselves when we let the vices of envy and hatred enter deep into our own natures. But there is another harm; and it is evident that we should try to do away with that. 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.

27. If I must choose between righteousness and peace I choose righteousness.

32. A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.

35. No man is justified in doing evil on the grounds of expediency.

59. Each nation has its own pet sins to which it is merciful, and also sins which it treats as most abhorrent. In America, we are peculiarly sensitive about big money contributions for which the donors expect any reward. In England, where in some ways the standard is higher than here, such contributions are accepted as a matter of course, nay, as one of the methods by which wealthy men obtain peerages. It would be well-nigh an impossibility for a man to secure a seat in the United States Senate by mere campaign contributions, in the way that seats in the British House of Lords have often been secured without any scandal being caused thereby.

69. Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.

106. Peace is generally good in itself, but it is never the highest good unless it comes as the handmaid of righteousness; and it becomes a very evil thing if it serves merely as a mask for cowardice and sloth, or as an instrument to further the ends of despotism or anarchy.

118. The man who loves other countries as much as his own stands on a level with the man who loves other women as much as he loves his own wife.

131. There is not in all America a more dangerous trait than the deification of mere smartness unaccompanied by any sense of moral responsibility.

133. To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.