Sunday Quote 20710

I am currently reading a biography of Theodore Roosevelt, so naturally anything that mentions him catches my eye of late.  I consider him a model for all to follow.  I daresay that we need more men willing to stand for what they believe as he did, unafraid of what consequences there may be.  On the opening of the Panama Canal, he once again extolled the virtues of what he called "the strenuous life".  Don't talk, just do.

"Why, gentlemen, there never was a great feat done yet that there were not some men evil enough, small enough, or foolish enough, to wish to try to interfere with it and to sneer at those who are actually doing the work. From time to time, little men will come along to find fault with what you have done; to say that something could have been done better; that there has been some mistake, some shortcoming; that things are not really managed in the best of all possible manners, in the best of all possible worlds. They will have their say and they will go downstream like bubbles; they will vanish; but the work you have done will remain for the ages. It is the man who does the job who counts, not the little scolding critic who thinks how it ought to have been done."

 President Theodore Roosevelt at the dedication of the Panama Canal. November 16, 1906


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