THE BIG STICK
I saw in Roosevelt a strong man, who had taken early to heart Hamlet’s maxim, and had steadfastly practised it:—
“Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When Honour’s at the stake.”
He himself summed up this part of his philosophy in a phrase which has become a proverb:—
“Speak softly; but carry a big stick.”
More than once in his later years, he quoted this to me, adding, that it was precisely because this or that Power knew that he carried a big stick, that he was enabled to speak softly with effect.
William Roscoe Thayer (Condensed)
A-HUNTING TREES WITH JOHN MUIR
From Roosevelt’s Autobiography
When I first visited California, it was my good fortune to see the “big trees,” the Sequoias, and then to travel down into the Yosemite with John Muir. Of course, of all people in the world, he was the one with whom it was best worth while thus to see the Yosemite....
John Muir met me with a couple of packers and two mules to carry our tent, bedding, and food for a three days’ trip.