“This country has nothing to fear from the crooked man who fails. We put him in jail. It is the crooked man who succeeds who is a threat to this country.”

—  Theodore Roosevelt

Address in Memphis, Tennessee (25 October 1905) http://www.trsite.org/content/pages/speaking-loudly
1900s

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 29, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "This country has nothing to fear from the crooked man who fails. We put him in jail. It is the crooked man who succeeds…" by Theodore Roosevelt?
Theodore Roosevelt photo
Theodore Roosevelt 445
American politician, 26th president of the United States 1858–1919

Related quotes

Brent Weeks photo

“A solicitor is a man who does worse things within the law than most crooks do outside it.”

Brent Weeks book The Way of Shadows

Source: The Way of Shadows (2008), Chapter 13 (p. 99)

Abraham Cowley photo

“I sing the Man who Judahs Scepter bore
In that right hand which held the Crook before;
Who from best Poet, best of Kings did grow;
The two chief gifts Heav'n could on Man bestow.”

Abraham Cowley (1618–1667) British writer

Book I, lines 1-4
Davideis (1656)

Indro Montanelli photo

“I know many crooks and they never preach, but I don't know anyone who preaches that isn't a crook also.”

Indro Montanelli (1909–2001) Italian journalist

beppegrillo.it, 7 may, 2008.
2000s - 2010s

Henry Ford photo

“The man who has the largest capacity for work and thought is the man who is bound to succeed.”

Henry Ford book My Life and Work

My Life and Work (1922)

Al Capone photo

“A crook is a crook, and there's something healthy about his frankness in the matter. But the guy who pretends he's enforcing the law and steals on his authority is a swell snake.”

Al Capone (1899–1947) American gangster
Jerome David Salinger photo

“Pencey was full of crooks. Quite a few guys came from these wealthy families, but it was full of crooks anyway. The more expensive a school is, the more crooks it has - I'm not kidding.”

Jerome David Salinger book The Catcher in the Rye

Source: The Catcher in the Rye (1951), Chapter 1

Richard Salter Storrs photo

“The man who has given himself to his country loves it better; the man who has fought for his friend honors him more; the man who has labored for his community values more highly the interests he has sought to conserve; the man who has wrought and planned and endured for the accomplishment of God's plan in the world sees the greatness of it, the divinity and glory of it, and is himself more perfectly assimilated to it.”

Richard Salter Storrs (1821–1900) American Congregational clergyman

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 130.

William Cobbett photo

“A man of all countries is a man of no country: and let all those citizens of the world remember, that he who has been a bad subject in his own country...will never be either trusted or respected.”

William Cobbett (1763–1835) English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist

‘Observations on Priestley's Emigration’ (August 1794), Porcupine's Works; containing various writings and selections, exhibiting a faithful picture of the United States of America, Volume I (1801), p. 169
1790s

Harry Truman photo

“No man can get rich in politics unless he's a crook.”

Harry Truman (1884–1972) American politician, 33rd president of the United States (in office from 1945 to 1953)

Variant: Similarly on pg. 136: "About this getting rich in politics. Like I said, you just can't do it unless you're a crook." And earlier: "An honest public servant can't become rich in politics." - Truman's diary, 24 April 1954.
Source: Harry S Truman, quoted in Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S Truman by Merle Miller, 1973-1974 SBN 425-02664-7 LOC 73-87198, Berkeley Medallion Edition, October, 1974, Chapter 10. "The Only Defeat − and Then Victory", pg. 134.

Related topics