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)