The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey

by Candice Millard

“Our creed is one that bids us to be just to all, to feel sympathy for all, and to strive for an understanding of the needs of all. Our purpose is to smite down wrong.”

Throughout his adult life, Roosevelt would relish physical exertion, and he would use it not just as a way to keep his body fit and his mind sharp but as his most effective weapon against depression and despair.

When Roosevelt was only fourteen years old, he began contributing specimens to New York’s American Museum of Natural History, the museum that his father had helped found in 1869.

“There is a universal saying to the effect that it is when men are off in the wilds that they show themselves as they really are,”

Roosevelt had never allowed himself to fear death, famously writing, “Only those are fit to live who do not fear to die.”