Often our inspiration for our Wednesday Wisdom posts comes from something we’ve read while researching for another post, but today’s was different.
Rather than coming across a quotation and saving it for later, we decided to dive into Theodore Roosevelt’s writing with the specific goal of finding a quotation that would make a great Wednesday Wisdom post.
Our starting point was the comprehensive biography of Roosevelt’s writings available on the Center’s website here thanks to the hard work of Co-Director Dr. Michael Patrick Cullinane and LtCol Gregory A. Wynn.
We read through the various article titles and ultimately decided on Roosevelt’s 1900 article published in The Outlook entitled “Character and Success” since it sounded like there would be some good quotations in there.
We had barely gotten through the first page when we thought we had found the perfect quotation: “Bodily vigor is good, and vigor of intellect is even better, but far above both is character.”
But in true Roosevelt fashion, we kept reading until the end and decided on another sentence that we felt mentioned not only the importance of character but also what ought to be displayed. According to Roosevelt, the most important component of character was what he called “steadfast resolution.”
“The boy who is going to make a great man, or is going to count in any way in after life, must make up his mind not merely to overcome a thousand obstacles, but to win in spite of a thousand repulses or defeats.”
Much emphasis is placed on Roosevelt’s concept of daring greatly, a phrase most commonly found in his Citizenship in a Republic speech in 1910 although it appears in other speeches as well. For example, he gave a 1901 speech in Colorado on the quarter-centennial of its statehood where he praised those who went West and “greatly dared and greatly did.”
But as Roosevelt makes clear in today’s #WednesdayWisdom, steadfastness in spite of failures was better than daring greatly and attempting to overcome obstacles. In the final sentence of the “Character and Success” article, Roosevelt emphasized character—for both nation and individual—“that does and dares as well as endures . . .” (emphasis added)
Action wasn’t enough. A person of character also endured. Five years later, Roosevelt would again emphasize resolution when he wrote to his son Kermit in 1905 about his grades starting to drop.
As Roosevelt wrote, “[I]t would be far better to think just as little as possible about coming home and resolutely set yourself to putting your best thought into your work. It is an illustration of the old adage about putting your hand to the plow and then looking back.”
The adage to which Roosevelt refers is Luke 9:62: “And Jesus said unto him, ‘No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.’” In other words, the person who had character endured even when things got difficult.
For Roosevelt, it wasn’t just about getting into the arena; it was about staying in there, enduring, and putting one’s hands to plow and not looking back. People of character didn’t just overcome obstacles; they were strong, firm, and steadfast and didn’t give up in spite of defeats.
Read Roosevelt’s entire article about character and success in The Outlook here.
Well done and thanks for the Wisdom!