William Howard Taft Quotes - Page 2

We live in a stage of politics, where legislators seem to regard the passage of laws as much more important than the results of their enforcement.

Anyone who has taken the oath I have just taken must feel a heavy weight of responsibility. If not, he has no conception of the powers and duties of the office.

The City that knows how.

I am afraid I am a constant disappointment to my party. The fact of the matter is, the longer I am President the less of a party man I seem to become.

I do not believe in the divinity of Christ, and there are many other of the postulates of the orthodox creed to which I cannot subscribe.

I am in favor of helping the prosperity of all countries because, when we are all prosperous, the trade with each becomes more valuable to the other.

As the Republican platforms says, the welfare of the farmer is vital to that of the whole country.

We are all dependent upon the investment of capital.

Next to the right of liberty, the right of property is the most important individual right guaranteed by the Constitution and the one which, united with that of personal liberty, has contributed more to the growth of civilization than any other institution established by the human race.

I do not allow myself to be moved by anything except the law. If there has been a mistake in the law, or if I think there has beenperjury or injustice, I will weigh the petition most carefully, but I do not permit myself to be moved by more harrowing details, and I try to treat each case as if I was reviewing it or hearing it for the first time from the bench.

If this humor be the safety of our race, then it is due largely to the infusion into the American people of the Irish brain.

I love judges, and I love courts. They are my ideals, that typify on earth what we shall meet hereafter in heaven under a just God.

The real secrets of Masonry are never told, not even from mouth to ear. For the real secret of Masonry is spoken to your heart and from it to the heart of your brother. Never the language made for tongue may speak it, it is uttered only in the eye in those manifestations of that love which a man has for his friend, which passeth all other loves.

Socialism proposes no adequate substitute for the motive of enlightened selfishness that today is at the basis of all human labor and effort, enterprise and new activity.

Politics make me sick

Golf in the interest of good health and good manners. It promotes self-restraint and affords a chance to play the man and act the gentleman.

A man never knows exactly how the child of his brain will strike other people.

Politics, when I am in it, makes me sick.

We passed the Children's Bureau bill calculated to prevent children from being employed too early in factories.

The scope of modern government in what it can and ought to accomplish for its people has been widened far beyond the principles laid down by the old "laissez faire" school of political rights, and the widening has met popular approval.

When the history of this period is written, [William Jennings] Bryan will stand out as one of the most remarkable men of his generation and one of the biggest political men of our country.

As a people, we have the problem of making our forests outlast this generation, or iron outlast this century, and our coal the next; not merely as a matter of convenience or comfort, but as a matter of stern necessity.

The true Mason is ever vigilant for subtle traces of character and personality flaws which daily experience brings out.

I think it is a wise course for laborers to unite to defend their interests.... I think the employer who declines to deal with organized labor and to recognize it as a proper element in the settlement of wage controversies is behind the times.... Of course, when organized labor permits itself to sympathize with violent methods or undue duress, it is not entitled to our sympathy.

One cannot always be sure of the truth of what one hears if he happens to be President of the United States.