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.
Interpretation
The wisdom of Masonry and life is experiential and personal, requiring active pursuit and engagement.
In this quote, Taft emphasizes that both the insights offered by Masonry and the deeper truths of life are not simply conveyed through words, but are instead discovered through personal experience and commitment. The 'open secret' suggests that while this knowledge is accessible to everyone, it must be sought out individually, recognizing that no one can truly understand it for another person.
In practice
This quote would be fitting for a speech at a Freemason gathering, encouraging members to continue their personal quests.
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 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.
We must dare to be great; and we must realize that greatness is the fruit of toil and sacrifice and high courage.
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.
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.
As a people, we have the problem of making our forests outlast this generation, or iron outlast this century, and our coal the next; not merely as a matter of convenience or comfort, but as a matter of stern necessity.
Survival, in the cool economics of biology, means simply the persistence of one's own genes in the generations to follow.
I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man's being unable to sit still in a room.
Victory and defeat are each of the same price.
I am a person before I am anything else. I never say I am a writer. I never say I am an artist...I am a person who does those things.
If a book were written all in numbers, it would be true. It would be just. Nothing said in words ever came out quite even. Things in words got twisted and ran together, instead of staying straight and fitting together. But underneath the words, at the center, like the center of the Square, it all came out even. Everything could change, yet nothing would be lost. If you saw the numbers you could see that, the balance, the pattern. You saw the foundations of the world. And they were solid.
Is this the curse of modernity, to live in a world without judgment, without perspective, no context for understanding or distinguishing what is real and what is imagined, what is manipulated and what is by chance beautiful, what is shadow and what is flesh?
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