William Howard Taft
William Howard Taft
William Howard Taftserved as the 27th President of the United Statesand as the 10th Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, the only person to have held both offices. Taft was elected president in 1908, the chosen successor of Theodore Roosevelt, but was defeated for re-election by Woodrow Wilson in 1912 after Roosevelt split the Republican vote by running as a third-party candidate. In 1921, President Warren G. Harding appointed Taft chief justice, a position in which he served...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPresident
Date of Birth15 September 1857
CountryUnited States of America
William Howard Taft quotes about
One cannot always be sure of the truth of what one hears if he happens to be President of the United States.
I do not allow myself to be moved by anything except the law. If there has been a mistake in the law, or if I think there has beenperjury or injustice, I will weigh the petition most carefully, but I do not permit myself to be moved by more harrowing details, and I try to treat each case as if I was reviewing it or hearing it for the first time from the bench.
There is only one thing I wast to say about Ohio that has a political tinge, and that is that I think a mistake has been made of recent years in Ohio in failing to continue as our representatives the same people term after term. I do not need to tell a Washington audience, among whom there are certainly some who have been interested in legislation, that length of service in the House and in the Senate is what gives influence.
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.
The true Mason's level of discernment increases with every use of the working tools, because the true Mason is ever working on him/her self.
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.
The true Mason ever strives to cultivate Masonry in his/her life to the fullest degree possible.
I am glad to be going. This is the lonesomest pace in the world?
The true Mason never hesitates to use the working tools to correct personal flaws.
The true Mason always carries his working tools everywhere.
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.
The President can exercise no power which cannot be fairly and reasonably traced to some specific grant of power in the Federal Constitution or in an act of Congress passed in pursuance thereof. There is no undefined residuum of power which he can exercise because it seems to him to be in the public interest.
The man with the average mentality, but with control, with a definite goal, and a clear conception of how it can be gained, and above all, with the power of application and labor, wins in the end.
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.