Theodore Roosevelt's
Inaugural Address
March 4, 1905
MY fellow-citizens, no people on earth have more cause to be thankful than ours, and this is said reverently, in no spirit of boastfulness in our own strength, but with gratitude to the Giver of Good who has blessed us with the conditions which have enabled us to achieve so large a measure of well-being and of happiness. To us as a people it has been granted to lay the foundations of our national life in a new continent. We are the heirs of the ages, and yet we have had to pay few of the penalties which in old countries are exacted by the dead hand of a bygone civilization. We have not been obliged to fight for our existence against any alien race; and yet our life has called for the vigor and effort without which the manlier and hardier virtues wither away. Under such conditions it would be our own fault if we failed; and the success which we have had in the past, the success which we confidently believe the future will bring, should cause in us no feeling of vainglory, but rather a deep and abiding realization of all which life has offered us; a full acknowledgment of the responsibility which is ours; and a fixed determination to show that under a free government a mighty people can thrive best, alike as regards the things of the body and the things of the soul.
Much has been given us, and much will rightfully be expected from us. We have duties to others and duties to ourselves; and we can shirk neither. We have become a great nation, forced by the fact of its greatness into relations with the other nations of the earth, and we must behave as beseems a people with such responsibilities. Toward all other nations, large and small, our attitude must be one of cordial and sincere friendship. We must show not only in our words, but in our deeds, that we are earnestly desirous of securing their good will by acting toward them in a spirit of just and generous recognition of all their rights. But justice and generosity in a nation, as in an individual, count most when shown not by the weak but by the strong. While ever careful to refrain from wrongdoing others, we must be no less insistent that we are not wronged ourselves. We wish peace, but we wish the peace of justice, the peace of righteousness. We wish it because we think it is right and not because we are afraid. No weak nation that acts manfully and justly should ever have cause to fear us, and no strong power should ever be able to single us out as a subject for insolent aggression.
Our relations with the other powers of the world are important; but still more important are our relations among ourselves. Such growth in wealth, in population, and in power as this nation has seen during the century and a quarter of its national life is inevitably accompanied by a like growth in the problems which are ever before every nation that rises to greatness. Power invariably means both responsibility and danger. Our forefathers faced certain perils which we have outgrown. We now face other perils, the very existence of which it was impossible that they should foresee. Modern life is both complex and intense, and the tremendous changes wrought by the extraordinary industrial development of the last half century are felt in every fiber of our social and political being. Never before have men tried so vast and formidable an experiment as that of administering the affairs of a continent under the forms of a Democratic republic. The conditions which have told for our marvelous material well-being, which have developed to a very high degree our energy, self-reliance, and individual initiative, have also brought the care and anxiety inseparable from the accumulation of great wealth in industrial centers. Upon the success of our experiment much depends, not only as regards our own welfare, but as regards the welfare of mankind. If we fail, the cause of free self-government throughout the world will rock to its foundations, and therefore our responsibility is heavy, to ourselves, to the world as it is to-day, and to the generations yet unborn. There is no good reason why we should fear the future, but there is every reason why we should face it seriously, neither hiding from ourselves the gravity of the problems before us nor fearing to approach these problems with the unbending, unflinching purpose to solve them aright.
Yet, after all, though the problems are new, though the tasks set before us differ from the tasks set before our fathers who founded and preserved this Republic, the spirit in which these tasks must be undertaken and these problems faced, if our duty is to be well done, remains essentially unchanged. We know that self-government is difficult. We know that no people needs such high traits of character as that people which seeks to govern its affairs aright through the freely expressed will of the freemen who compose it. But we have faith that we shall not prove false to the memories of the men of the mighty past. They did their work, they left us the splendid heritage we now enjoy. We in our turn have an assured confidence that we shall be able to leave this heritage unwasted and enlarged to our children and our children's children. To do so we must show, not merely in great crises, but in the everyday affairs of life, the qualities of practical intelligence, of courage, of hardihood, and endurance, and above all the power of devotion to a lofty ideal, which made great the men who founded this Republic in the days of Washington, which made great the men who preserved this Republic in the days of Abraham Lincoln.
Theodore Roosevelt at Amazon
MemorableQuotations.com
Memorable Quotations Store at Amazon
Memorable Quotations:
American Presidents of the Past (Kindle Book)
Memorable Quotations:
U.S. Democrats of the Past (Kindle Book)
Memorable Quotations:
U.S. Republicans of the Past (Kindle Book)
Memorable Quotations:
Famous Lawyers of the Past (Kindle Book)
Memorable Quotations:
Military Leaders of the Past (Kindle Book)
Memorable Quotations:
Politicians of the Past (Kindle Book)
Memorable Quotations:
Statesmen of the Past (Kindle Book)
Memorable Quotations:
Historians of the Past (Kindle Book)
Memorable Quotations: Actors
Memorable Quotations: American Women Writers
Memorable Quotations: African-American Writers
Memorable Quotations: Teachers and Educators
Memorable Quotations: Short Story Writers
Memorable Quotations: War Correspondents
Memorable Quotations: British Women Writers
Memorable Quotations: Science Fiction Writers
Memorable Quotations: British Prime Ministers
Memorable Quotations: U. S. States
What famous people are from your state?
Memorable Quotations: U. S. Supreme Court Justices
Memorable Quotations: Humorists, Wits, Satirists (A - H)
Memorable Quotations: Humorists, Wits, Satirists (I - P)
Memorable Quotations: Humorists, Wits, Satirists (Q - Z)
Memorable Quotations: Latin American Writers
Memorable Quotations: Past Political Leaders of Massachusetts
Memorable Quotations: Critics
Memorable Quotations: Editors
Memorable Quotations: English Writers
Memorable Quotations: Essayists
Memorable Quotations: French Writers
Memorable Quotations: Poets
Proverbs
Memorable Quotations: Irish Writers
Memorable Quotations: Journalists
Memorable Quotations: Lawyers
Memorable Quotations: Novelists
Memorable Quotations: Philosophers
Memorable Quotations: Playwrights
Quotations by Subjects
Memorable Quotations: Women Writers
Memorable Quotations: Abolitionists
Memorable Quotations: American Democrats
Memorable Quotations: American First Ladies
Memorable Quotations: American Presidents
Memorable Quotations: American Republicans
Memorable Quotations: Anthropologists
Memorable Quotations: Artists
Memorable Quotations: Australian Writers
Memorable Quotations: Austrian Writers
Memorable Quotations: Baseball Players
Memorable Quotations: Biographers
Memorable Quotations: Business Leaders
Memorable Quotations: Canadian Writers
Memorable Quotations: Columnists
Memorable Quotations: Comedians
Memorable Quotations: Dancers
Memorable Quotations: Danish Writers
Memorable Quotations: Diarists
Memorable Quotations: Doctors
Memorable Quotations: Economists
Memorable Quotations: Edwardian Writers
Memorable Quotations: Elizabethan Writers
Memorable Quotations: Existentialists
Memorable Quotations: Feminists
Memorable Quotations: Filmmakers
Memorable Quotations: German Writers
Memorable Quotations: Germans
Memorable Quotations: Greeks
Memorable Quotations: Historians
Memorable Quotations: Italian Writers
Memorable Quotations: Jewish Women Writers
Memorable Quotations: Jewish Writers
Memorable Quotations: Lecturers
Memorable Quotations: Letter Writers
Memorable Quotations: Massachusetts Writers
Memorable Quotations: Mathematicians
Memorable Quotations: Military Leaders
Memorable Quotations: Moralists
Memorable Quotations: Musicians
Memorable Quotations: Mystics
Memorable Quotations: Nobel Prize Winners
Memorable Quotations: Norwegian Writers
Memorable Quotations: Nurses
Memorable Quotations: Orators
Memorable Quotations: Photographers
Memorable Quotations: Pilots
Memorable Quotations: Poles
Memorable Quotations: Polish Writers
Memorable Quotations: Political Theorists
Memorable Quotations: Politicians (A - L)
Memorable Quotations: Politicians (M - Z)
Memorable Quotations: Psychiatrists
Memorable Quotations: Pulitzer Prize Winners
Memorable Quotations: Reformers
Memorable Quotations: Religious Leaders
Memorable Quotations: Restoration Dramatists
Memorable Quotations: Romans
Memorable Quotations: Royalty
Memorable Quotations: Russian Writers
Memorable Quotations: Saints
Memorable Quotations: Scientists
Memorable Quotations: Scots
Memorable Quotations: Scottish Writers
Memorable Quotations: Screenwriters
Memorable Quotations: Singers
Memorable Quotations: Social Workers
Memorable Quotations: Socialites
Memorable Quotations: Sociologists
Memorable Quotations: Songwriters
Memorable Quotations: Spanish Writers
Memorable Quotations: Speechwriters
Memorable Quotations: Sports Figures
Memorable Quotations: Statesmen
Memorable Quotations: Suffragettes
Memorable Quotations: Swedish Writers
Memorable Quotations: Translators
Memorable Quotations: Victorian Writers
Memorable Quotations: Zodiac Signs
Christmas Carols
Books by Carol Dingle
Books by Diana Dell
A Literary Quiz
MemorableQuotations.com
http://www.memorablequotations.com