Best 117 quotes of William Howard Taft on MyQuotes

Action for which I become responsible, or for which my administration becomes responsible, shall be within the law.

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

Anti-Semitism is a noxious weed that should be cut out. It has no place in America.

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.

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.

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

A system in which we may have an enforced rest from legislation for two years is not bad.

Constitutions are checks upon the hasty action of the majority. They are the self-imposed restraints of a whole people upon a majority of them to secure sober action and a respect for the rights of the minority.

Don't worry over what the newspapers say. I don't. Why should anyone else? I told the truth to the newspaper correspondents - but when you tell the truth to them they are at sea.

Don't write so that you can be understood, write so that you can't be misunderstood.

Enthusiasm for a cause sometimes warps judgment.

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.

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 am glad to be going. This is the lonesomest pace in the world?

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.

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.

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 do not know much about politics, but I am trying to do the best I can with this administration until the time shall come for me to turn it over to somebody else.

I do not think that there is any doubt about where I stand in respect to boycotts. If there is, I will just state what I think about them. They are illegal and ought to be suppressed. I would never countenance that which recognizes their legality.

I don't know the man I admire more than [Charles Evans] Hughes. If ever I have the chance I shall offer him the Chief Justiceship.

I don't know whither we are drifting, but I do know where every real thinking patriot will stand in the end, and that's by the Constitution.

If they will play fair I will play fair, but if they won't then I reserve all my rights to do anything I find myself able to do.

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 have an intense personal interest in making the use of American capital in the development of China an instrument for the promotion of the welfare of China, and an increase in her material prosperity without entanglements or creating embarrassment affecting the growth of her independent political power, and the preservation of her territorial integrity.

I have come to the conclusion that the major part of the president is to increase the gate receipts of expositions and fairs and bring tourists to town.

I know how irritating it is to have somebody else lay down rules for your moral uplift, but you've got to stand a great deal in order to make progress.

I know this, and I know it from actual experience in the Orient, that the progress of modern Christian civilization has largely depended on the earnest hard work of the Christian missions of every denomination.

I'll be damned if I am not getting tired of this. It seems to be the profession of a President simply to hear other people talk.

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.

I prefer an income tax, but the truth is I am afraid of the discussion which will follow and the criticism which will ensue if there is an other division in the Supreme Court on the subject of the income tax. Nothing has injured the prestige of the Supreme Court more than that last decision, and I think that many of the most violent advocates of the income tax will be glad of the substitution in their hearts for the same reasons. I am going to push the Constitutional amendment, which will admit an income tax without questions, but I am afraid of it without such an amendment.

I sincerely hope that the incoming Congress will be alive, as it should be, to the importance of our foreign trade and of encouraging it in every way feasible. The possibility of increasing this trade in the Orient, in the Philippines, and in South America is known to everyone who has given the matter attention.

It gives me the greatest pleasure to say, as I do from the bottom of my heart, that never in the history of the country, in any crisis and under any conditions, have our Jewish fellow citizens failed to live up to the highest standards of citizenship and patriotism.

I think I might as well give up being a candidate. There are so many people in the country who don't like me.

I think his greatest fault is his failure to accord credit to anyone for what he may have done. This is a great weakness in any man.

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.

It is fitting that the Government of the United States should assume the obligation of the establishment and maintenance of a first-class university for the education of colored menand I wish to put in this caveatthat the colored race today, all of them, would be better off if they all had university education.... Of course, the basis of education of the colored people is in the primary schools and in industrial schools.... In those schools must be introduced teachers from such university institutions as this.

It is not impossible, of course, after such an administration as Roosevelt's and after the change in method that I could not but adapt in view of my different way of looking at things, that questions should arise as to whether I should go back on the principles of the Roosevelt administration.... I have a government of limited power under a Constitution, and we have got to work out our problems on the basis of law. Now, if that is reactionary, then I am a reactionary.

I wish to reiterate all the reasons which [my predecessor] has presented in favor of the policy of maintaining a strong navy as the best conservator of our peace with other nations and the best means of securing respect for the assertion of our rights of the defense of our interests, and the exercise of our influence in international matters.

I would like to have an ample fund to spread the light of Republicanism, but I am willing to undergo the disadvantage to make certain that in the future we shall reduce the power of money in politics for unworthy purposes.

Lawyers are necessary in a community. Some of you...take a different view; but as I am a member of that legal profession, or was at one time, and have only lost standing in it to become a politician, I still retain the pride of the profession. And I still insist that it is the law and the lawyer that make popular government under a written constitution and written statutes possible.

Masonry, according to the general acceptation of the term, is an art founded on the principles of geometry, and devoted to the service and convenience of mankind. But Freemasonry, embracing a wider range and having a nobler object in view, namely, the cultivation and improvement of the human mind, may with more propriety be called a science, inasmuch as, availing itself of the terms of the former, it inculcates the principles of the purest morality, though its lessons are for the most part veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols.

My impression about the Panama Canal is that the great revolution it is going to introduce in the trade of the world is in the trade between the east and the west coast of the United States.

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.

Next to the right of liberty, the right of property is the most important individual right guaranteed by the Constitution . .

No, the only things which do not bother me are the elements. I can overcome them without a fight. All one has to do to get the best of the elements is to stand pat and one will win.

One of the reforms to be carried out during the incoming administration is a change in our monetary and banking laws, so as to secure greater elasticity in the forms of currency available for trade and to prevent the limitations of law from operating to increase the embarrassment of a financial panic.

On the whole, yes, I would rather be the Chief Justice of the United States, and a quieter life than that which becomes at the White House is more in keeping with the temperament, but when taken into consideration that I go into history as President, and my children and my children's children are the better placed on account of that fact, I am inclined to think that to be President well compensates one for all the trials and criticisms he has to bear and undergo.

People run away from the name subsidy. It is a subsidy. I am not afraid to call it so. It is paid for the purpose of giving a merchant marine to the whole country so that the trade of the whole country will be benefitted thereby, and the men running the ships will of course make a reasonable profit.... Unless we have a merchant marine, our navy if called upon for offensive or defensive work is going to be most defective.

Politics make me sick

Presidents come and go, but the Supreme Court goes on forever.