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 TAFTWe can’t have a decent government unless those in power exercise self restraint.
More William Howard Taft Quotes
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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.
WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT -
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.
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 -
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.
WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT -
Politics, when I am in it, makes me sick.
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 -
The true Mason always carries his working tools everywhere.
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 -
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 -
One cannot always be sure of the truth of what one hears if he happens to be President of the United States.
WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT -
We are imperfect. We cannot expect perfect government.
WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT -
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.
WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT -
We shall have to begin all over again. [Taft hoped that] the Senators might change their minds, or that the people might change the Senate; instead of which they changed me.
WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT -
No tendency is quite so strong in human nature as the desire to lay down rules of conduct for other people.
WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT -
There is nothing so despicable as a secret society that is based upon religious prejudice and that will attempt to defeat a man because of his religious beliefs. Such a society is like a cockroach – it thrives in the dark. So do those who combine for such an end.
WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT