William Howard Taft Quotes

The secret of Masonry, like the secret of life, can be known only by those who seek it, serve it, live it. It cannot be uttered; it can only be felt and acted. It is, in fact, an open secret, and each man knows it according to his quest and capacity. Like all things worth knowing, no one can know it for another and no man can know it alone.

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.

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.

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.

It is not impossible, of course, after such an administration as Roosevelt's and after the change in method that I could not but adapt in view of my different way of looking at things, that questions should arise as to whether I should go back on the principles of the Roosevelt administration.... I have a government of limited power under a Constitution, and we have got to work out our problems on the basis of law. Now, if that is reactionary, then I am a reactionary.

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.

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.

The true Mason never hesitates to use the working tools to correct personal flaws.

Masonry, according to the general acceptation of the term, is an art founded on the principles of geometry, and devoted to the service and convenience of mankind. But Freemasonry, embracing a wider range and having a nobler object in view, namely, the cultivation and improvement of the human mind, may with more propriety be called a science, inasmuch as, availing itself of the terms of the former, it inculcates the principles of the purest morality, though its lessons are for the most part veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols.

Roosevelt could always keep ahead with his work, but I cannot do it, and I know it is a grievous fault, but it is too late to remedy it. The country must take me as it found me. Wasn't it your mother who had a servant girl who said it was no use for her to try to hurry, that she was a "Sunday chil" and no "Sunday chil" could hurry? I don't think I am a Sunday child, but I ought to have been; then I would have had an excuse for always being late.

The game of baseball is a clean, straight game, and it summons to its presence everybody who enjoys clean, straight athletics. It furnishes amusement to the thousands and thousands.