Man in the Arena

The man is one of my all time heros. He was one of the greatest conservationists of all time. There was a Harley Convention in Cody a couple of years ago so I spent some time at the museum..unbelievable--as I live only a couple hours from there I have visisted on numerous occasions and highly recommend seeing it..

some of his great words shown below

Ripp

One of the top three most requested quotes is that regarding the "man in the arena" or "not the critic"

"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 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 up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for 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 he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

"Citizenship in a Republic,"
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

Below are additional quotations related to the more famous and later quote. These quotes taken from a cdrom - The Works of Theodore Roosevelt - National Edition, A PRODUCT OF H-BAR ENTERPRISES COPYRIGHT 1997

"...the man who really counts in the world is the doer, not the mere critic-the man who actually does the work, even if roughly and imperfectly, not the man who only talks or writes about how it ought to be done." (1891)

"Criticism is necessary and useful; it is often indispensable; but it can never take the place of action, or be even a poor substitute for it. The function of the mere critic is of very subordinate usefulness. It is the doer of deeds who actually counts in the battle for life, and not the man who looks on and says how the fight ought to be fought, without himself sharing the stress and the danger." (1894)