[at-l] Theo. Roosevelt from "Citizenship in a Republic"

[sloetoe at yahoo.com (Sloetoe)]

I love SnailMale's "Geronimo!" quote, but we've given play to
Theo too in the past week. Here's a bit more:


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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, and 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 the
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 know neither victory nor
defeat.

Shame on the man of cultivated taste who permits refinement to
develop into a fastidiousness that unfits him for doing the
rough work of a workaday world.  Among the free peoples who
govern themselves there is but a small field of usefulness open
for the men of cloistered life who shrink from contact with
their fellows.  Still less room is there for those who deride
or slight what is done by those who actually bear the brunt of
the day; nor yet for those others who always profess that they
would like to take action, if only the conditions of life were
not what they actually are. The man who does nothing cuts the
same sordid figure in the pages of history, whether he be cynic,
or fop, or voluptuary.  There is little use for the being whose
tepid soul knows nothing of the great and generous emotion, of
the high pride, the stern belief, the lofty enthusiasm, of the
men who quell the storm and ride the thunder.  Well for these
men if they succeed; well also, though not so well, if they
fail, given only that they have nobly ventured, and have put
forth all their heart and strength.  It is war-worn Hotspur,
spent with hard fighting, he of the many errors and the valiant
end, over whose memory we love to linger, not over the memory of
the young lord who but for the vile guns would have been a
soldier.

- Theodore Roosevelt's speech delivered at the Sorbonne, Paris,
April 23, 1910, entitled "Citizenship in a Republic"



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