Constitutions are checks upon ...

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.
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.
 William Howard Taft

More phrases

Effort only fully releases its reward after a person refuses to quit.
Never complain and never explain.
A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.
 George S. Patton
Problems are not stop signs, they are guidelines.
 Robert Schuller
Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.
 Harriet Beecher Stowe

Quotes from the same author

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.
 William Howard Taft
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.
 William Howard Taft
Unless education promotes character making, unless it helps men to be more moral, more just to their fellows, more law abiding, more discriminatingly patriotic and public spirited, it is not worth the trouble taken to furnish it.
 William Howard Taft
The judiciary has fallen to a very low state in this country. I think your part of the country has suffered especially. The federal judges of the South are a disgrace to any country, and I'll be damned if I put any man on the bench of whose character and ability there is the least doubt.
 William Howard Taft
The Government is able to afford a suitable army and a suitable navy. It may maintain them without the slightest danger to the Republic or the cause of free institutions, and fear of additional taxation ought not to change a proper policy in this regard.
 William Howard Taft