Quotes by William 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.
• We are all imperfect. We can not expect perfect government.
• The world is not going to be saved by legislation.
• The trouble with me is that I like to talk too much.
• Substantial progress toward better things can rarely be taken without developing new evils requiring new remedies.
• I have come to the conclusion that the major part of the work of a President is to increase the gate receipts of expositions and fairs and bring tourists to town.
• 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 think I might as well give up being a candidate. There are so many people in the country who don't like me.
• 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.
• 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.
• Politics makes me sick.
• 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.
• Action for which I become responsible, or for which my administration becomes responsible, shall be within the law.
• 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.
• Presidents come and go, but the Supreme Court goes on forever.
• 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.
• No tendency is quite so strong in human nature as the desire to lay down rules of conduct for other people.
• 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.
• As the Republican platforms says, the welfare of the farmer is vital to that of the whole country.
• 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.
• Anti-Semitism is a noxious weed that should be cut out. It has no place in America.
• A government is for the benefit of all the people.
• Don't write so that you can be understood, write so that you can't be misunderstood.
• Enthusiasm for a cause sometimes warps judgment.
• Failure to accord credit to anyone for what he may have done is a great weakness in any man.
• 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 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 am president now, and tired of being kicked around.
• A system in which we may have an enforced rest from legislation for two years is not bad.