William Howard Taft: Quotes about people

William Howard Taft was American politician, 27th President of the United States (in office from 1909 to 1913). Explore interesting quotes on people.
William Howard Taft: 64 quotes1 like

“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.”

William Howard Taft

Speech before the Ohio Society, Washington, D.C.; quoted in the Congressional Record (May 23, 1916), vol. 53, p. 8527.

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

William Howard Taft

Quoted in Robert J. Schoenberg (1992), Mr. Capone, apparently referring to the temperance movement.
Attributed

“If humor be the safety of our race, then it is due largely to the infusion into the American people of the Irish brain.”

William Howard Taft

Irish Humor, address in Hot Springs, Virginia (5 August 1908) http://www.authentichistory.com/1900s/1908election/19080805_William_H_Taft-Irish_Humor.html.

“One of the marvelous things about him is that he is strong enough to force the men who dislike him the most to stand by him. By far he is the strongest man before the people to-day except Roosevelt. I think his greatest fault is his failure to accord credit to anyone for what he may have done. This is a great weakness in any man. I think it was one of the strongest things about Roosevelt. He never tried to minimize what other people did and often exaggerated it.”

William Howard Taft

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."

“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.”

William Howard Taft

Quoted in Archibald W. Butt (1930), Taft and Roosevelt.
Attributed