“Enthusiasm for a cause sometimes warps judgment.”
Quoted in David G. Plotkin (1955), Dictionary of American Maxims.
Attributed
William Howard Taft:
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Famous William Howard Taft Quotes
Our Chief Magistrate and His Powers (Columbia University Press, 1916)
Irish Humor, address in Hot Springs, Virginia (5 August 1908) http://www.authentichistory.com/1900s/1908election/19080805_William_H_Taft-Irish_Humor.html.
Letter of Archibald Butt to Clara F. Butt (1 June 1909); reprinted in The Intimate Letters of Archie Butt (Doubleday, Doran, & Co., 1930).
Speech before the Ohio Society, Washington, D.C.; quoted in the Congressional Record (May 23, 1916), vol. 53, p. 8527.
William Howard Taft Quotes about people
Quoted in Robert J. Schoenberg (1992), Mr. Capone, apparently referring to the temperance movement.
Attributed
Quoted in Archibald W. Butt (1930), Taft and Roosevelt.
Attributed
On Charles Evans Hughes, in November 1909, as quoted in Taft and Roosevelt : The intimate letters of Archie Butt (1930) by Archibald Willingham Butt, p. 224; this has sometimes been paraphrased: "Failure to accord credit to anyone for what he may have done is a great weakness in any man."
William Howard Taft Quotes
“The President so fully represents his party”
William Howard Taft Essential Writings and Addresses. Edited by David H. Burton. Faitleigh Dickinson University Press (2009). Chapter 1: Political Analyses. Subchapter: The President and His Powers, page 149-150. https://books.google.de/books?id=KiWFtHXQDOIC&pg=PA149&lpg=PA149&dq=that+they+make+him+responsible+for+all+the+sins+of+omission+and+of+commission+of+society+at+large.&source=bl&ots=Zy5G9PEz2_&sig=kGqYf643TGdpt-tT-9CWD2ex9LI&hl=de&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiBxbPsi6fQAhXsKcAKHcV4AH0Q6AEIJjAC#v=onepage&q=that%20they%20make%20him%20responsible%20for%20all%20the%20sins%20of%20omission%20and%20of%20commission%20of%20society%20at%20large.&f=false
Context: The President so fully represents his party, which secures political power by its promise to the people, and the whole government is so identified in the minds of the people with his personality that they make him responsible for all the sins of omission and of commission of society at large. This would be ludicrous if it did not have sometimes serious results. The President cannot make clouds to rain and cannot make the corn to grow, he cannot make business good; although when these things occur, political parties do claim some credit for the things that have happened in this way. He has no power of state legislation, which covers a very wide field and which comes in many respects much closer to the happiness of the people than the Federal Government.
“The publishers profess to be the agents of heaven in establishing virtue”
Quoted in Henry Fowles Pringle (1939), The Life and Times of William Howard Taft, referring to a postal rate increase affecting popular magazines.
Attributed
Context: The publishers profess to be the agents of heaven in establishing virtue and therefore that they ought to receive some subsidy from the government. I can ask no stronger refutation to this claim … than the utterly unscrupulous methods pursued by them in seeking to influence Congress on this subject.
Letter to Yale University (1899), quoted in Henry F. Pringle, William Howard Taft: The Life and Times, vol. 1, p. 45 (1939).
“The truth is that in my present life I don’t remember that I ever was president.”
Correspondence (1925), quoted in James Chace (2004), 1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft & Debs
“The welfare of the farmer is vital to that of the whole country.”
The Farmer and the Republican Party, address in Hot Springs, Virginia (5 August 1908) http://www.authentichistory.com/1900s/1908election/19080805_William_H_Taft-The_Farmer_and_The_Republican_Party.html.
“Anti-Semitism is a noxious weed that should be cut out. It has no place in America.”
"Anti-Semitism in the United States", address to the Anti Defamation League in Chicago, Illinois (23 December 1920).
Quoted in Henry Pringle (1939), The Life and Times of William Howard Taft.
Attributed
“Politics, when I am in it, makes me sick.”
Quoted in Archibald W. Butt (1930), Taft and Roosevelt.
Attributed
Popular Government: Its Essence, Its Permanence and Its Perils, chapter 4, p.91 (1913).
Popular Government: Its Essence, Its Permanence and Its Perils, chapter 4, p.90 (1913).
Speech to the Lotus Club (16 November 1912).
Address in Pocatello, Idaho (5 October 1911).
"Adequate Machinery for Judicial Business," Journal of the American Bar Association, vol. 7, p. 454 (September 1921).
Address at the Hotel Fairmont in San Francisco (6 October 1909).
“We are all imperfect. We can not expect perfect government.”
Address at a banquet given by the Board of Trade and Chamber of Commerce of Washington, D.C., May 8, 1909.; found in Presidential Addresses and State Papers of William Howard Taft, vol. 1, chapter 7, p. 82 (1910).
Source: Our Chief Magistrate and His Powers (Columbia University Press, 1916), Chapter 6.
“Presidents come and go, but the Supreme Court goes on forever.”
Quoted in Henry Fowles Pringle (1939), The Life and Times of William Howard Taft.
Attributed
“The world is not going to be saved by legislation.”
Source: Our Chief Magistrate and His Powers (Columbia University Press, 1916), Chapter 6.
Our Chief Magistrate and His Powers (Columbia University Press, 1916)
Speech to the Young Men's Hebrew Association in New York (20 December 1914).
Source: Our Chief Magistrate and His Powers (Columbia University Press, 1916), P. 61.
Quoted in David G. Plotkin (1955), Dictionary of American Maxims; the last phrase translates roughly as "Wonderfully, amazingly; remarkable to say; It's a miracle! "
Attributed
