Teddy Roosevelt was the 26th president of the United States who served from 1901-1909. He was an avid outdoorsman who traveled extensively through the wilderness. His love of nature is evident in everything he wrote, namely Hunting Trips of a Ranchman and The Wilderness Hunter. Below are a few quotes to enjoy on this President’s Day as we remember present and past presidents of the USA.

“Life is a great adventure … accept it in such a spirit.” – Theodore Roosevelt

“The beauty and charm of the wilderness are his for the asking, for the edges of the wilderness lie close beside the beaten roads of the present travel.” – Theodore Roosevelt

“Of all the questions which can come before this nation, short of the actual preservation of its existence in a great war, there is none which compares in importance with the great central task of leaving this land even a better land for our descendants than it is for us.” – Theodore Roosevelt

“The lack of power to take joy in outdoor nature is as real a misfortune as the lack of power to take joy in books.” – Theodore Roosevelt

“After nightfall the face of the country seems to alter marvelously, and the clear moonlight only intensifies the change. The river gleams like running quicksilver, and the moonbeams play over the grassy stretches of the plateaus…The Bad Lands seem to be stranger and wilder than ever, the silvery rays turning the country into a kind of grim fairyland.” – Theodore Roosevelt

“We have become great because of the lavish use of our resources. But the time has come to inquire seriously what will happen when our forests are gone, when the coal, the iron, the oil, and the gas are exhausted, when the soils have still further impoverished and washed into the streams, polluting the rivers, denuding the fields and obstructing navigation.” – Theodore Roosevelt

“The farther one gets into the wilderness, the greater is the attraction of its lonely freedom.” – Theodore Roosevelt

“All life in the wilderness is so pleasant that the temptation is to consider each particular variety, while one is enjoying it, as better than any other. A canoe trip through the great forests, a trip with a pack-train among the mountains, a trip on snow-shoes through the silent, mysterious fairy-land of the woods in winter–each has its peculiar charm.” – Theodore Roosevelt

All Images by Margaret Marr