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Kitchen Table Kibitzing 9/2/26: Good Advice [1]

['Franks Human']

Date: 2026-09-02  

The felon should listen to what Theodore Roosevelt said on this day in 1901.

“Speak softly and carry a big stick—you will go far.” If a man continually blusters, if he lacks civility, a big stick will not save him from trouble; and neither will speaking softly avail, if back of the softness there does not lie strength, power. In private life there are few things more obnoxious than the man who is always loudly boasting; and if the boaster is not prepared to back up his words his position becomes absolutely contemptible. So it is with the nation. It is both foolish and undignified to indulge in undue self-glorification, and above all, in loose-tongued denunciation of other peoples.

Of course, the felon is congenitally incapable of any kind of wisdom, so we’ll just have to hope he doesn’t get us all nuked. Roosevelt said it was a west African proverb but there’s no evidence.

The term derives from the phrase, Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far, which Roosevelt claimed was a West African proverb, although there is little evidence for that.[4] Roosevelt (then Governor of New York), in a bout of happiness after forcing New York’s Republican committee to pull support away from a corrupt financial adviser, wrote to Henry L. Sprague a letter dated January 26, 1900,[5] in which he says: I have always been fond of the West African proverb: “Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.” He first publicly uttered the phrase in March of the same year in relation to his reputation for holding state Senators accountable. Roosevelt added clarification to the meaning of the saying.[6] If you simply speak softly the other man will bully you. If you leave your stick at home you will find the other man did not. If you carry the stick only and forget to speak softly in nine cases out of ten, the other man will have a bigger stick. Roosevelt would go on to be elected vice president later that year and subsequently used the aphorism in an address to the Minnesota State Fair entitled “National Duties” on September 2, 1901:[7][8] A good many of you are probably acquainted with the old proverb: “Speak softly and carry a big stick—you will go far.”

More good advice Uploaded to DailyKos by All4Truth

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