Wise words: Theodore Roosevelt, “The Man in the Arena”

Posted on July 29, 2011 by Catherine Ahern

After his junior year in high school, my brother attended the Naval Academy’s Summer Seminar, a six-day program designed to give participants a taste of what it’s like to attend the academy. My brother said it was both the most difficult and most rewarding thing he’d ever done. But of all the takeaways from the week, his favorite was from Theodore Roosevelt’s 1910 “Citizenship in a Republic” speech. This is the excerpt he had to memorize:

"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."

When my brother shared “The Man in the Arena” with us, it struck a nerve with me too, and I’ve returned to it again and again over the years for inspiration. Who among us doesn’t occasionally need a reminder to take a chance, go for it and leave the path of “those cold and timid souls”?

One of my most popular posts on this blog featured an inspirational quote from Ira Glass. Because people were so drawn to that post, I’m starting an occasional “Wise words” series and this is the first post. Join in by sharing your favorite inspirational quote in the comments section below.

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