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Theodore Roosevelt was a master of language. Throughout his life, the highly quotable president and writer crafted numerous clever phrases. While he avoided profanity, Roosevelt didn’t shy away from sharp words when necessary, often reserving his harshest critiques for private letters rather than direct confrontations. Below are some of his most biting remarks.
1. “A kindly, fuzzy-wuzzy old man with the intellect of a sweetbread.”
This cutting remark was directed at an unnamed Supreme Court Justice who had the audacity to oppose Roosevelt.
2. “A well-intentioned but dim-witted anarchist with a shaggy and awkward appearance.”
This was said about William Alfred Peffer, the populist senator from Kansas, who was notably hairy, tall, and slender.
3. “The cunning, clever, and self-serving manipulator in the White House.”
As noted by historian Edmund Morris, in 1915, Edith Wharton invited Roosevelt to visit Europe and document the impact of World War I on the French. However, Roosevelt declared he would only go if he could fight, something he deemed improbable under President Woodrow Wilson, whom he described as someone who “cannot be kicked into war.” Roosevelt also had harsh words for Wilson’s supporters, labeling them “flubdubs and mollycoddles.”
4. “A calculating, narrow, biased, stubborn, fearful, hymn-singing politician from Indianapolis.”
Roosevelt directed this insult at President Benjamin Harrison, who had appointed him as a reform commissioner out of obligation. Harrison soon regretted the decision, especially after Roosevelt began investigating William Wallace, the Indianapolis Postmaster and Harrison’s closest friend.
5. “[A] feeble, insignificant bundle of emptiness.”
Roosevelt aimed this remark at novelist Henry James. In return, James described Roosevelt as “dangerous” and “the sheer monstrous embodiment of unparalleled and deafening Noise.”
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6. “The most unbearably sluggish individual ever obsessed with bureaucracy.”
This was hardly a compliment for one of Roosevelt’s colleagues—specifically, Charles Lyman, a fellow civil service commissioner and Civil War veteran. As noted in Lyman’s Men of Mark in America entry from 1906, “While Mr. Roosevelt focused on exposing abuses and advocating reform through speeches and the press, Mr. Lyman dedicated himself to the administrative and constructive aspects, ensuring the reform was grounded in practicality and aligned with the urgent demands of public service.”
7. “A career yodeler, a walking musical instrument.”
This was directed at William Jennings Bryan, who served as Woodrow Wilson’s secretary of state.
8. “That festering blemish on our society.”
Roosevelt had no compliments for William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal, which accused him of “attacking labor” while enforcing the law regarding Miller in the Printing Office, as he wrote to Harrison Gray Otis in 1903. Previously, the paper had printed an interview claiming Roosevelt praised its coverage of the events leading to the Spanish-American War as “most commendable and accurate.” In reality, the coverage was riddled with errors, and Roosevelt vehemently denied ever giving such an interview or offering such praise.
9. “Dimwit,” “Blockhead,” “Intellect inferior to a guinea pig.”
Roosevelt saved some of his most scathing remarks for his chosen successor. After a rift developed between Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, he confronted Taft for the Republican nomination, declaring, “I’ll propose the compromise candidate—myself. I’ll define the compromise platform—our platform.” When that failed, Roosevelt ran against Taft in 1912 under the Progressive Party, also known as the Bull Moose Party, and the battle turned personal.
To clarify the guinea pig analogy, Roosevelt once remarked that “Just as machinery can be measured in horsepower, some intellects can be measured in guinea pig power,” adding that certain accusations against him “can only be taken seriously by individuals with brains of roughly three-guinea-pig power.” The St. Louis Dispatch later commented, “Col. Theodore Roosevelt has further enriched the English language, already adorned by many of his phrases, with this gem: ‘Three-guinea-pig-power brain.’ This is deemed far superior to Woodrow Wilson’s ‘single-track mind,’ which enjoyed a brief moment of popularity.”
10. “A bumbling fool with a touch of mediocrity and vulgarity.”
Another jab directed at Taft.
11. “A genuine old-school Jeffersonian of the loudmouthed, bombastic kind.”
As defined by Merriam-Webster, a blatherskite is “someone who talks incessantly and foolishly.” Here, Roosevelt was targeting Mississippi Congressman John Sharp Williams, who held the position of minority leader in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1903 to 1908. In The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, Morris observed that Roosevelt’s “disdain for Jefferson was only surpassed by his admiration for the authoritarian Alexander Hamilton.”
12. “He is clearly insane, both morally and mentally.”
Roosevelt, a man of strong principles, directed these severe words at his brother, Elliott Roosevelt, who fathered a child out of wedlock. In his autobiography, Roosevelt wrote, “Public opinion and the law should unite to pursue the ‘notorious human swine’ who prey on vulnerable or naive young women.”
13. “[A] deceitful clothier … A poorly constructed individual, slick yet with prickly edges poking through.”
This was aimed at Postmaster General John Wanamaker, who declined to act when Milwaukee Postmaster George H. Paul fired Hamilton Shidy for “disloyalty and defiance,” as noted by Morris. Shidy had testified against Paul in a corruption case.
14. “A complete and utter rogue, as deceitful as they come. A sanctimonious, church-attending hypocrite.”
In this instance, Roosevelt was labeling Milwaukee Postmaster George H. Paul not only a fraud but also a hypocrite. (Paul eventually stepped down in 1889.)
15. “Not worth the effort to pursue further.”
Roosevelt aimed this remark at William J. Long, after the author of Wilderness Ways criticized the president for an interview in which Roosevelt branded Long a “nature faker.”
16. “His intellect seems to operate at about eight-guinea-pig capacity ... it’s pointless to engage with someone as dull-witted and unremarkable as the good Sir Mortimer.”
In a letter to Whitelaw Reid, Roosevelt shared his thoughts. Sir Mortimer Durand, the reserved and formal British Ambassador to the United States from 1903 to 1906 (also known for the Durand line between Pakistan and Afghanistan), greatly admired Roosevelt. Cecil Spring Rice noted that “My superior (Durand) considers Teddy R. the most remarkable man alive and has treated me with immense respect since discovering I correspond with Teddy. I share stories, and he listens in awe.”
However, Durand struggled to match Roosevelt’s energy, both in conversation and physical activity. On one occasion, during a walk, Durand recorded in his diary that Roosevelt “forced me to scramble through bushes and over rocks for two and a half hours at an exhausting pace, leaving me utterly spent.” That’s classic TR for you!
