Wednesday Wisdom
Eyes on the Stars
Here at the Theodore Roosevelt Center we feel fortunate that we get to immerse ourselves in all things Theodore Roosevelt every day. And as we’ve discovered, the more we read Theodore Roosevelt’s speeches and writings, the more we see continuity not only in his thoughts but also in his words.
Roosevelt has a number of quotable lines, but one of our favorites comes from a 1904 address at Groton School where his sons attended high school: “Keep your eyes on the stars, but remember to keep your feet on the ground.” (You can find it in the quotes section of our website.)
But Roosevelt didn’t use this turn of phrase for the first time on May 24, 1904 when he spoke at Groton. Rather, it predates his time as president. The earliest version we could find dated back to when he was governor of New York in 1899, five years before his Groton speech.
Roosevelt also continued to use it years after his presidency. As far as we know, his last public use of the phrase occurred two months before his death when he spoke about Black Americans and World War I at Carnegie Hall on November 2, 1918.
It was hard for us to decide which iteration to include as today’s #WednesdayWisdom since we’re aware of at least four variations featuring the “eyes on the stars” phrase in addition to the speech at Groton. Ultimately, we decided to select a quotation from a 1901 speech delivered by then vice president Roosevelt in Springfield, Illinois about two weeks before he unexpectedly became president.
“We need reformers—we have got to have them. We want them, though, built on the line of Lincoln. We want men who will fix their eyes on the stars, but who will not forget that their feet must walk on the ground.”
In this speech delivered to national guardsmen in Illinois, Roosevelt praised them for their work before talking about what was needed from good citizens: sanity, common sense, and high ideals, to use his words.
As Roosevelt said in the sentence right after today’s Wednesday Wisdom, “We want men who will strive for a high ideal, but who will remember that you must achieve the highest ideal by practical methods.”
Roosevelt dreamed big dreams, but he also emphasized practicality, which was perfectly captured by the “eyes on the stars” phrase. While this one was our favorite of the variations, we’re sharing the other three below with the phrase highlighted so you can see just how much Roosevelt liked this phrase, which he used in speeches throughout the last third of his life.
Address at the Chamber of Commerce, Syracuse, New York, February 22, 1899: “Washington has won a deathless place in the annals of the best and the wisest of mankind, He stands as the greatest of good men and as the best of great men, because he did not play the part merely of the cloistered philosopher, but strove to achieve results; because he did the best he could with the means at hand, because he ever fixed his eye on the distant goal, and yet did not overlook the obstacles that lay between. He fixed his eyes on the stars, but fixing them there, did not forget to look where his feet trod.”
Address at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, April 3, 1903: “We need courage and we need honesty, and finally we need the saving grace of common sense. And we shall get good results from good citizenship exactly in proportion as the average citizen is developed along the three lines that I have indicated; for that is the man who will have high ideals, and yet will be able to realize them in fashion. That is the man who will keep his eyes on the stars, and yet not forget that in this world of ours he must have his feet on the ground. The man who will strive after a high ideal, but strive after it in methods that will permit of its realization.”
Remarks Made at a Meeting Held Under the Auspices of the Circle for Negro War Relief at Carnegie Hall, New York, November 2, 1918: “But mine is the ungrateful task of warning both [Black and White citizens] that they must not expect too much. They must have their eyes on the stars but their feet on the ground.”
As for today’s Wednesday Wisdom, you can read Vice President Roosevelt’s entire speech to the Illinois national guardsmen here.