I wonder if Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, 1901 – 1909, had to deal with those at HQ who at the daily morning meeting try to second-guess the actions of frontline police officers… This famous quote, from a speech he made in Paris in 1910 after he has left office, makes me think he did!
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 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 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 himself for 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 he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.
I love this quote. It’s stuck up on the door of my locker at work.
