teddy roosevelt on achievement

“It is not the critic who counts: not the woman who points out how the strong woman stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the woman 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 herself for a worthy case; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if she fails, at least she fails while daring greatly, so that her place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

Theodore Roosevelt
from “Citizen in a Republic” speech at the Sorbonne in Paris, April 23, 1910.

borrowed from the Campoverde social club

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