“There were all kinds of things I was afraid of at first, ranging from grizzly bears to ‘mean’ horses and gun-fighters; but by acting as if I was not afraid I gradually ceased to be afraid.” 
- 1913 (from his auto-biography)

“First of all, I want to say this about myself: I have altogether too important things to think of to feel any concern over my own death; and now I cannot speak to you insincerely within five minutes of being shot. I am telling you the literal truth when I say that my concern is for many other things.”
- October, 14, 1912 

Theodore Roosevelt

My Theodore Roosevelt portrait by Adam Lauricella @ Graceland Tattoo.

On October 14, 1912, Roosevelt was campaigning in Milwaukee, Wisconsin when a local saloon-keeper shot him. The bullet lodged in his chest after passing through a jacket pocket containing his steel eyeglass case and a copy of his 50 page speech which had been folded in half. Being an anatomist, Roosevelt concluded that since he wasn’t coughing blood the bullet had not penetrated the chest wall into his lung. He declined immediate treatment and gave his 90 minute speech with blood seeping from the wound into his shirt. “Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot,” Roosevelt said, “but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose.”

Oh, and Roosevelt was blind in his left eye, the result of a boxing injury he sustained while in office.