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.
WILLIAM HOWARD TAFTToo many people don’t care what happens so long as it doesn’t happen to them.
More William Howard Taft Quotes
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The diplomacy of the present administration has sought to respond to the modern idea of commercial intercourse. This policy has been characterized as substituting dollars for bullets.
WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT -
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.
WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT -
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.
WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT -
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.
WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT -
Well, I have one consolation. No candidate was ever elected ex-president by such a large majority!
WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT -
The laboring man and the trade-unionist, if I understand him, asks only equality before the law. Class legislation and unequal privilege, though expressly in his favor, will in the end work no benefit to him or to society.
WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT -
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.
WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT -
Enthusiasm for a cause sometimes warps judgment.
WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT -
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.
WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT -
The President cannot make clouds to rain and cannot make the corn to grow. He cannot make business good, although when these things occur, political parties do claim some credit for the good things that have happened in this way
WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT -
Next to the right of liberty, the right of property is the most important individual right guaranteed by the Constitution . .
WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT -
The trouble with me is that I like to talk too much.
WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT -
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.
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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.
WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT -
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.
WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT