Giant Wisdom on Roosevelt Island

We had never been to Roosevelt Island before, so we joined our old friends the Hansens one October weekend to see this island on the Potomac River. Our boys had been so hesitant to spend time with people they didn't remember, but within five minutes they were running around like they were cousins.

The island and its paths are a nature preserve dedicated to Teddy Roosevelt. It's appropriate that a natural space be dedicated to him, the president who first fought hardest for the preservation of natural spaces.

In the very center his words are found on giant 15-foot plaques. They are hard to see, but they valuable and were chosen well. 

"Ours is a government of liberty by, through, and under the law."

"A great democracy has got to be progressive or it will soon cease to be great or a democracy."

"Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive. In popular government results worth having can be achieved only by men who combine worthy ideals with practical good sense."

"If I must choose between righteousness and peace I choose righteousness."

"I want to see you game, boys. I want to see you brave and manly and I also want to see you gentle and tender."

"Be practical as well as generous in your ideals. Keep your eyes on the stars but remember to keep your feet on the ground."

"Courage, hard work, self-mastery and intelligent effort are essential to a successful life."

"Alike for the nation and the individual, the one indispensable requisite is character."

"A man's usefulness depends upon his living up to his ideals in so far as he can."

"It is hard to fail, but it is worse to never have tried to succeed. All daring and courage, all iron endurance of misfortune make for a finer and nobler type of manhood."

"Only those are fit to live who do not fear to die. And none are fit to die who have shrunken from the joy of life and the duty of life."

"There is delight in the hardy life of the open."

"There are no words that can tell the hidden spirit of the wilderness, that can reveal its mystery, its melancholy and its charm."

"The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources, assets which it must turn over to the next generation, increased and not impaired in value."

"Conservation means development as much as it does protection."