THE MAN IN THE ARENA
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
"I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life; I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well."
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
-T. R.
Excerpt from the speech "Citizenship In A Republic"
delivered at the Sorbonne, in Paris, France on 23 April, 1910
"I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life; I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well."
- T. R.
"The first essential here in the United States is that we shall be one nation... In such a nation there can be no fifty-fifty allegiance. There is not such a thing as being loyal to any other power. It is just as impossible for a man to be loyal to his wife and also equally loyal to some other woman.... If a man behaves as an American it is an infamy to hold his creed or his national origin against him, or to fail in any way to give him the square deal as an American."
- T.R. speech at Wittenberg College in Ohio on 25 May 1918
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