William Howard Taft People Quotations

No tendency is quite so strong in human nature as the desire to lay down rules of conduct for other people.

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.

A government is for the benefit of all the people.

What I am anxious to do is to get the best bill possible with the least amount of friction.... I wish to avoid [splitting our party]. I shall do all in my power to retain the corporation tax as it is now and also force a reduction of the [tariff] schedules. It is only when all other efforts fail that I'll resort to headlines and force the people into this fight.

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

Too many people don't care what happens so long as it doesn't happen to them.

The admission of Oriental immigrants who cannot be amalgamated with our people has been made the subject either of prohibitory clauses in our treaties and statutes or of strict administrative regulations secured by diplomatic negotiations. I sincerely hope that we may continue to minimize the evils likely to arise from such immigration without unnecessary friction and by mutual concessions between self-respecting governments.

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.

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.

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

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.