The Strenuous Life

Essays and Addresses

Theodore Roosevelt 1900

These essays and speeches argue for hard work, public service, and an active role for America abroad. The title speech was delivered in Chicago in 1899, soon after the Spanish-American War.

216 pages 4h 11m reading time

A classic statement of American ideals of effort, duty, and national power at the turn of the 20th century.
Argues that a good life, for a person or a country, comes from facing hardship and taking risks rather than seeking ease and safety.
Argues that the United States should accept the duties of a world power, including controlling the Philippines, which critics then and now have seen as a defense of empire.
Its title gave English the lasting phrase "the strenuous life," still used for a life of hard physical and moral effort.
It shaped Roosevelt's public image as a man of action, an image that helped carry him into the vice presidency and then the presidency.

Spoken during a new war

Fighting between American troops and Filipino fighters had broken out just two months before Roosevelt gave the title speech.
A Civil War anniversary dinner

The title speech was given at a Chicago men's club dinner marking the anniversary of the Civil War's end.
Written while governor

Roosevelt gave the speech and gathered the book while he was serving as governor of New York.
Built from earlier pieces

Most chapters first appeared as separate speeches or magazine articles in the 1890s before being collected into one book.