So often is the virgin sheet of paper more real than what one has to say, and so often one regrets having marred it.Harold ActonThe biographies and autobiographies are on the whole more impressive than the fiction of the last two decades, but the freakish best sellers among them are least likely to withstand the test of time.Harold ActonReason itself is fallible, and this fallibility must find a place in our logic.Nicola AbbagnanoBuilding art is a synthesis of life in materialised form. We should try to bring in under the same hat not a splintered way of thinking, but all in harmony together.Alvar AaltoNothing is as dangerous in architecture as dealing with separated problems. If we split life into separated problems we split the possibilities to make good building art. Alvar AaltoOur time is so specialized that we have people who know more and more or less and less.Alvar AaltoWe have almost a city has probably two or three hundred committees. Every committee is dealing with just one problem and has nothing to do with the other problems.Alvar AaltoWe should concentrate our work not only to a separated housing problem but housing involved in our daily work and all the other functions of the city.Alvar AaltoA man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.Theodore RooseveltA man who is good enough to shed his blood for the country is good enough to be given a square deal afterwards.Theodore RooseveltA thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education.Theodore RooseveltA typical vice of American politics is the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues.Theodore RooseveltA vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of the user. Theodore RooseveltAbsence and death are the same - only that in death there is no suffering. Theodore RooseveltAppraisals are where you get together with your team leader and agree what an outstanding member of the team you are, how much your contribution has been valued, what massive potential you have and, in recognition of all this, would you mind having your salary halved.Theodore RooseveltBehind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.Theodore RooseveltBelieve you can and you're halfway there.Theodore RooseveltBig jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones. Theodore RooseveltCharacter, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.Theodore RooseveltCourtesy is as much a mark of a gentleman as courage.Theodore RooseveltDo what you can, with what you have, where you are.Theodore RooseveltDon't hit at all if it is honorably possible to avoid hitting; but never hit soft. Theodore RooseveltEvery immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country.Theodore RooseveltEvery reform movement has a lunatic fringe.Theodore RooseveltFar and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.Theodore RooseveltFar better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat. Theodore RooseveltFor unflagging interest and enjoyment, a household of children, if things go reasonably well, certainly all other forms of success and achievement lose their importance by comparison.Theodore RooseveltFreedom from effort in the present merely means that there has been effort stored up in the past.Theodore RooseveltGermany has reduced savagery to a science, and this great war for the victorious peace of justice must go on until the German cancer is cut clean out of the world body.Theodore RooseveltGet action. Seize the moment. Man was never intended to become an oyster. Theodore RooseveltGreat thoughts speak only to the thoughtful mind, but great actions speak to all mankind.Theodore RooseveltI am a part of everything that I have read.Theodore RooseveltI am only an average man but, by George, I work harder at it than the average man. Theodore RooseveltI care not what others think of what I do, but I care very much about what I think of what I do! That is character!Theodore RooseveltI don't pity any man who does hard work worth doing. I admire him. I pity the creature who does not work, at whichever end of the social scale he may regard himself as being.Theodore RooseveltI think there is only one quality worse than hardness of heart and that is softness of head.Theodore RooseveltI took the Canal Zone and let Congress debate; and while the debate goes on, the canal does also.Theodore RooseveltI wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life.Theodore RooseveltIf there is not the war, you don't get the great general; if there is not a great occasion, you don't get a great statesman; if Lincoln had lived in a time of peace, no one would have known his name.Theodore RooseveltIf you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month.Theodore RooseveltIn any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.Theodore RooseveltIt behooves every man to remember that the work of the critic is of altogether secondary importance, and that, in the end, progress is accomplished by the man who does things.Theodore RooseveltIt is difficult to make our material condition better by the best law, but it is easy enough to ruin it by bad laws.Theodore RooseveltIt is essential that there should be organization of labor. This is an era of organization. Capital organizes and therefore labor must organize.Theodore RooseveltIt is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.Theodore RooseveltKeep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.Theodore RooseveltLeave it as it is. The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it. Theodore RooseveltNever throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering.Theodore RooseveltNine-tenths of wisdom is being wise in time.Theodore RooseveltNo great intellectual thing was ever done by great effort.Theodore RooseveltNo man is above the law and no man is below it: nor do we ask any man's permission when we ask him to obey it.Theodore RooseveltNo man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expedience.Theodore RooseveltNo man is worth his salt who is not ready at all times to risk his well-being, to risk his body, to risk his life, in a great cause.Theodore RooseveltNo people is wholly civilized where a distinction is drawn between stealing an office and stealing a purse.Theodore RooseveltNobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care. Theodore RooseveltObedience of the law is demanded; not asked as a favor.Theodore RooseveltOld age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you've got to start young.Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive.Theodore RooseveltPeople ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader leads, and the boss drives.Theodore RooseveltProbably the greatest harm done by vast wealth is the harm that we of moderate means do ourselves when we let the vices of envy and hatred enter deep into our own natures.Theodore RooseveltRhetoric is a poor substitute for action, and we have trusted only to rhetoric. If we are really to be a great nation, we must not merely talk; we must act big. Theodore RooseveltSome men can live up to their loftiest ideals without ever going higher than a basement.Theodore RooseveltSpeak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.Theodore RooseveltThe American people abhor a vacuum.Theodore RooseveltThe best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.Theodore RooseveltThe boy who is going to make a great man must not make up his mind merely to overcome a thousand obstacles, but to win in spite of a thousand repulses and defeats.Theodore RooseveltThe first requisite of a good citizen in this republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing to pull his own weight.Theodore RooseveltThe government is us; we are the government, you and I.Theodore RooseveltThe human body has two ends on it: one to create with and one to sit on. Sometimes people get their ends reversed. When this happens they need a kick in the seat of the pants.Theodore RooseveltThe man who loves other countries as much as his own stands on a level with the man who loves other women as much as he loves his own wife.Theodore RooseveltThe most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.Theodore RooseveltThe most practical kind of politics is the politics of decency.Theodore RooseveltThe most successful politician is he who says what the people are thinking most often in the loudest voice.Theodore RooseveltThe one thing I want to leave my children is an honorable name.Theodore RooseveltThe only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything. Theodore RooseveltThe only time you really live fully is from thirty to sixty. The young are slaves to dreams; the old servants of regrets. Only the middle-aged have all their five senses in the keeping of their wits.Theodore RooseveltThe pacifist is as surely a traitor to his country and to humanity as is the most brutal wrongdoer.Theodore RooseveltThe reactionary is always willing to take a progressive attitude on any issue that is dead.Theodore RooseveltThe things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life.Theodore RooseveltThe unforgivable crime is soft hitting. Do not hit at all if it can be avoided; but never hit softly.Theodore RooseveltThere has never yet been a man in our history who led a life of ease whose name is worth remembering.Theodore RooseveltTo announce that there must be no criticism of the president... is morally treasonable to the American public.Theodore RooseveltTo educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society. Theodore RooseveltWars are, of course, as a rule to be avoided; but they are far better than certain kinds of peace.Theodore RooseveltWe can have no '50-50' allegiance in this country. Either a man is an American and nothing else, or he is not an American at all.Theodore RooseveltWhen they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer "Present" or "Not guilty."Theodore RooseveltWhen you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, 'Certainly I can!' Then get busy and find out how to do it.Theodore Roosevelt。