Top 80 William Howard Taft Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “We can’t have a decent government unless those in power exercise self restraint.”

— William Howard Taft

52. “The secrecy of Masonry is an honorable secrecy; any good man may ask for her secrets; those who are worthy will receive them. To give them to those who do not seek, or who are not worthy, would but impoverish the Fraternity and enrich not those who received them.”

— William Howard Taft

53. “Politics, when I am in it, it makes me sick.”

— William Howard Taft

54. “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

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

— William Howard Taft

56. “The intoxication of power rapidly sobers off in the knowledge of its restrictions and under the prompt reminder of an ever-present and not always considerate press, as well as the kindly suggestions that not infrequently come from Congress.”

— William Howard Taft

57. “The Government is able to afford a suitable army and a suitable navy. It may maintain them without the slightest danger to the Republic or the cause of free institutions, and fear of additional taxation ought not to change a proper policy in this regard.”

— William Howard Taft

58. “I am president now, and tired of being kicked around.”

— William Howard Taft

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

— William Howard Taft

60. “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.”

— William Howard Taft

61. “In the public interest, therefore, it is better that we lose the services of the exceptions who are good Judges after they are seventy and avoid the presence on the Bench of men who are not able to keep up with the work, or to perform it satisfactorily.”

— William Howard Taft

62. “There are a great many people who are in favor of conservation no matter what it means.”

— William Howard Taft

63. “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.”

— William Howard Taft

64. “Enthusiasm for a cause sometimes warps judgment.”

— William Howard Taft

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

— William Howard Taft

66. “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

67. “I am glad to be going. This is the lonesomest pace in the world?”

— William Howard Taft

68. “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.”

— William Howard Taft

69. “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

70. “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

71. “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.”

— William Howard Taft

72. “The judiciary has fallen to a very low state in this country. I think your part of the country has suffered especially. The federal judges of the South are a disgrace to any country, and I’ll be damned if I put any man on the bench of whose character and ability there is the least doubt.”

— William Howard Taft

73. “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

74. “The game of baseball is a clean, straight game.”

— William Howard Taft

75. “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

76. “We are all dependent upon the investment of capital.”

— William Howard Taft

77. “There is not a subject in which I take a deeper interest than I do in the development of Alaska, and I propose, if Congress will follow by recommendations, to do something in that territory that will make it move on.”

— William Howard Taft

78. “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.”

— William Howard Taft

79. “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.”

— William Howard Taft

80. “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.”

— William Howard Taft

81. “There is no “but” in it. The way to be an administration Senator is to vote with the Administration.”

— William Howard Taft

82. “We, as Unitarians, may feel that the world is coming our way.”

— William Howard Taft

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

— William Howard Taft

84. “The precepts of the Gospel were universally the obligations of Masonry.”

— William Howard Taft

85. “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

86. “That all may be so, but when I begin to exercise that power I am not conscious of the power, but only of the limitations imposed on me.”

— William Howard Taft

87. “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

88. “Rules of conduct which govern men in their relations to one another are being applied in an ever-increasing degree to nations. The battlefield as a place of settlement of disputes is gradually yielding to arbitral courts of justice.”

— William Howard Taft

89. “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.”

— William Howard Taft