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“No Man Is Happy If He Does Not Work”

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

In 1903, speaking to the men of the YMCA in Topeka, Kansas, Roosevelt argued that work and love are the two most powerful forces for the betterment of mankind.

Work, the quality which makes a man ashamed not to be able to pull his own weight, not to be able to do for himself as well as for others without being beholden to any one for what he is doing. No man is happy if he does not work. Of all miserable creatures the idler, in whatever rank of society, is in the long run the most miserable. If a man does not work, if he has not in him not merely the capacity for work but the desire for work, then nothing can be done with him. He is out of place in our community. We have in our scheme of government no room for the man who does not wish to pay his way through life by what he does for himself and for the community. If he has leisure which makes it unnecessary for him to devote his time to earning his daily bread, then all the more he is bound to work just as hard in some way that will make the community the better off for his existence. If he fails that, he fails to justify his existence.

Work, the capacity for work, is absolutely necessary; and no man’s life is full, no man can be said to live in the true sense of the word, if he does not work. This is necessary, and yet it is not enough. If a man is utterly selfish, if utterly disregardful of the rights of others, if he has no ideals, if he works simply to gratify himself, small is his good in the community. I think even then he is probably better off than if he is an idler, but he is of no real use unless together with the quality which enables him to work he has the quality which enables him to love his fellows, to work with them and for them for the common good of all.