Theodore Roosevelt War Quotations

To announce that there must be no criticism of the president... is morally treasonable to the American public.

Germany has reduced savagery to a science, and this great war for the victorious peace of justice must go on until the German cancer is cut clean out of the world body.

If there is not the war, you don't get the great general; if there is not a great occasion, you don't get a great statesman; if Lincoln had lived in a time of peace, no one would have known his name.

Wars are, of course, as a rule to be avoided; but they are far better than certain kinds of peace.

...to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.

The most ultimately righteous of all wars is a war with savages, though it is apt to be also the most terrible and inhuman. The rude, fierce settler who drives the savage from the land lays all civilized mankind under a debt to him. ...[I]t is of incalculable importance that America, Australia, and Siberia should pass out of the hands of their red, black, and yellow aboriginal owners, and become the heritage of the dominant world races.

Abraham Lincoln - the spirit incarnate of those who won victory in the Civil War - was the true representative of this people, not only for his own generation, but for all time, because he was a man among men.

Councils of War never fight.

A really great people, proud and high spirited, would face all the disasters of war rather than purchase that base prosperity which is bought at the price of national honor.

After the war, and until the day of his death, his position on almost every public question was either mischievous or ridiculous, and usually both.

Such an experiment without actual conditions of war to support it is a foolish waste of time. . . . I once saw a man kill a lion with a 30-30 caliber rifle under certain conditions, but that doesn't mean that a 30-30 rifle is a lion gun.

No triumph of peace can equal the armed triumph of war.

The foes from whom we pray to be delivered are our own passions, appetites, and follies; and against these there is always need that we should war.

There is something to be said for government by a great aristocracy which has furnished leaders to the nation in peace and war for generations; even a Democrat like myself must admit this.

It may be that at some time in the dim future of the race the need for war will vanish: but that time is yet ages distant. As yet no nation can hold its place in the world, or can do any work really worth doing, unless it stands ready to guard its right with an armed hand.

It [the Civil War] was a heroic struggle; and, as is inevitable with all such struggles, it had also a dark and terrible side. Very much was done of good, and much also of evil; and, as was inevitable in such a period of revolution, often the same man did both good and evil. For our great good fortune as a nation, we, the people of the United States as a whole, can now afford to forget the evil, or, at least, to remember it without bitterness, and to fix our eyes with pride only on the good that was accomplished.

... looked at from the standpoint of the ultimate result, there was little real difference to the Indian whether the land was taken by treaty or by war. ... No treaty could be satisfactory to the whites, no treaty served the needs of humanity and civilization, unless it gave the land to the Americans as unreservedly as any successful war.

War is not merely justifiable, but imperative upon honorable men, upon an honorable nation, where peace can only be obtained by the sacrifice of conscientious conviction or of national welfare.

A just war is in the long run far better for a man's soul than the most prosperous peace.

Unjust war is to be abhorred; but woe to the nation that does not make ready to hold its own in time of need against all who would harm it! And woe thrice over to the nation in which the average man loses the fighting edge, loses the power to serve as a soldier if the day of need should arise!

War with evil; but show no spirit of malignity toward the man who may be responsible for the evil. Put it out of his power to do wrong.

I am rather more apt to read old books than new ones.

Profanity is the parlance of the fool. Why curse when there is such a magnificent language with which to discourse?

From reading of the people I admired - ranging from the soldiers of Valley Forge and Morgan's riflemen to my Southern forefathers and kinfolk - I felt a great admiration for men who were fearless and who could hold their own in the world. And I had a great desire to be like them.

The wise and honorable and Christian thing to do is to treat each black man and each white man (or any person) on his merits as a man, giving him no more and no less than he is worthy to have.

We must diligently strive to make our young men decent, God-fearing, law-abiding, honor-loving, justice-doing and also fearless and strong.

...the most ultimately righteous of all wars is a war with savages...

No triumph of peace is quite so great as the supreme triumphs of war.

The Armenian massacre was the greatest crime of the war..

... the Armenian massacre was the greatest crime of the war, and the failure to act against Turkey is to condone it ... the failure to deal radically with the Turkish horror means that all talk of guaranteeing the future peace of the world is mischievous nonsense.

I abhor unjust war. I abhor injustice and bullying by the strong at the expense of the weak, whether among nations or individuals. I abhor violence and bloodshed. I believe that war should never be resorted to when, or so long as, it is honorably possible to avoid it. I respect all men and women who from high motives and with sanity and self-respect do all they can to avert war. I advocate preparation for war in order to avert war; and I should never advocate war unless it were the only alternative to dishonor.

Of all the questions which can come before this nation, short of the actual preservation of its existence in a great war, there is none which compares in importance with the great central task of leaving this land even a better land for our descendants than it is for us.

A good Navy is not a provocation to war. It is the surest guaranty of peace.

The great body of our citizens shoot less as times goes on. We should encourage rifle practice among schoolboys, and indeed among all classes, as well as in the military services by every means in our power. Thus, and not otherwise, may we be able to assist in preserving peace in the world... The first step – in the direction of preparation to avert war if possible, and to be fit for war if it should come – is to teach men to shoot!

Our government, National and State, must be freed from the sinister influence or control of special interests. Exactly as the special interests of cotton and slavery threatened our political integrity before the Civil War, so now the great special business interests too often control and corrupt the men and methods of government for their own profit. We must drive the special interests out of politics.