A Cit­i­zen­ship in a Repub­lic

“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 them 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, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort with­out error and short­com­ing; but who does actu­al­ly strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthu­si­asms, the great devo­tions; who spends him­self in 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 fails while dar­ing great­ly, so that his place shall nev­er be with those cold and timid souls who nei­ther know vic­to­ry nor defeat.”

Ted­dy Roo­sevelt, Sor­bonne 1910