Top 100 Harry S. Truman Quotes
#1. All will concede that in order to have good neighbors, we must also be good neighbors. That applies in every field of human endeavor.
Harry S. Truman
#2. We have found that it is easier for men to die together on the field of battle than it is for them to live together at home in peace.
Harry S. Truman
#4. Whenever a fellow tells me he's bipartisan, I know he's going to vote against me.
Harry S. Truman
#5. In the long view, no nation is any healthier than its children.
Harry S. Truman
#6. Democracy alone can supply the vitalizing force to stir the peoples of the world into triumphant action, not only against their human oppressors, but also against their ancient enemies-hunger, misery, and despair.
Harry S. Truman
#7. There isn't any question about Washington's greatness. If his administration had been a failure, there would have been no United States. A lesser man couldn't have done it ... Washington was both a great administrator and a great leader, a truly great man in every way.
Harry S. Truman
#8. I'm very proud that I'm smart enough to get to the point
Harry S. Truman
#9. Herbert Hoover once ran on the slogan, 'Two cars in every garage'. Apparently, the Republican candidate this year is running on the slogan, 'Two families in every garage'.
Harry S. Truman
#10. Some day we'll awake, have a reformation of the heart, teach our kids honor and kill a few sex psychologists, put boys in high schools with men teachers (not sissies), close all the girls' finishing schools, shoot all the effeciency experts and become a nation of God's people once more.
Harry S. Truman
#11. The record proves that in peaceful commerce the combined efforts of our countries can produce outstanding results. Our trade with each other is far greater than that of any other two nations on earth.
Harry S. Truman
#14. Everybody has the right to express what he thinks. That, of course, lets the crackpots in. But if you cannot tell a crackpot when you see one, then you ought to be taken in.
Harry S. Truman
#15. I have had enough experience in all my years, and have read enough of the past, to know that advice to grandchildren is usually wasted.
Harry S. Truman
#16. It isn't important who is ahead at one time or another, in either an election or a horse race.
It's the horse that comes in first at the finish that counts
Harry S. Truman
#17. The true foundation of the brotherhood of humankind is belief in the knowledge that God is the Father of humankind. For us, therefore, brotherhood is not only a generous impulse but also a divine command.
Harry S. Truman
#18. Give me a one-handed economist! All my economists say, On the one hand on the other.
Harry S. Truman
#19. We must help to the limits of our strength. And we will.
Harry S. Truman
#21. All my life I have fought against prejudice and intolerance.
Harry S. Truman
#22. Whenever the press quits abusing me, I know I'm in the wrong pew.
Harry S. Truman
#23. An optimist is presented with a problem and sees an opportunity. A pessimist is presented with an opportunity and sees a problem.
Harry S. Truman
#24. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were political enemies, but they became fast friends. And when they passed away on the same day, the last words of one of them was, The country is safe. Jefferson still lives. And the last words of the other was, John Adams will see that things go forward.
Harry S. Truman
#25. Leadership is getting people to do things that they don't want to do.
Harry S. Truman
#26. Peace is precious to us. It is the way of life we strive for with all the strength and wisdom we possess. But more precious than peace are freedom and justice. We will fight, if fight we must, to keep our freedom and to prevent justice from being destroyed.
Harry S. Truman
#27. Today, America has become one of the most powerful forces for good on earth. We must keep it so.
Harry S. Truman
#28. Carry the battle to them. Don't let them bring it to you. Put them on the defensive and don't ever apologize for anything.
Harry S. Truman
#29. I would rather have peace in the world than be President.
Harry S. Truman
#30. This Nation was established by men who believed in God ... You will see the evidence of this deep religious faith on every hand.
Harry S. Truman
#31. I consider Monroe a pretty minor president. In spite of the Monroe Doctrine. That's the only important thing he ever did more or less on his own, when you really get down to it.
Harry S. Truman
#33. A President needs political understanding to run the government, but he may be elected without it.
Harry S. Truman
#34. The way in which you endure that which you must endure is more important than the crisis itself.
Harry S. Truman
#36. The greatest honor that has come to me, and that can ever come to me in my life, is to be Grand Master of Masons in Missouri.
Harry S. Truman
#38. When even one American - who has done nothing wrong - is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth - then all Americans are in peril.
Harry S. Truman
#39. If I hadn't been President of the United States, I probably would have ended up a piano player in a bawdy house.
Harry S. Truman
#40. Our efforts have brought new hope to all mankind. We have beaten back despair and defeatism. We have saved a number of countries from losing their liberty. Hundreds of millions of people all over the world now agree with us, that we need not have war-that we can have peace.
Harry S. Truman
#41. It is time that all Americans realized that the place of labor is side by side with the businessman and with the farmer, and not one-degree lower.
Harry S. Truman
#42. I am proud of my part in the creation of this new state. Our Government was the first to recognize the State of Israel.
Harry S. Truman
#43. When you get to be President, there are all those things, the honors, the twenty-one gun salutes, all those things. You have to remember it isn't for you. It's for the Presidency.
Harry S. Truman
#45. Canada is a broad land - broad in mind, broad in spirit, and broad in physical expanse.
Harry S. Truman
#46. How far would Moses have gone if he had taken a poll in Egypt?
Harry S. Truman
#47. A man cannot have character unless he lives within a fundamental system of morals that creates character.
Harry S. Truman
#48. Justice remains the greatest power on earth. To that tremendous power alone will we submit.
Harry S. Truman
#49. For some time I have been disturbed by the way the CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and at times a policy making arm of the government.
Harry S. Truman
#50. Washington is a very easy city for you to forget where you came from and why you got there in the first place.
Harry S. Truman
#51. Democrats work to help people who need help. That other party, they work for people who don't need help. That's all there is to it.
Harry S. Truman
#52. We seek a peaceful world, a prosperous world, a free world, a world of good neighbors, living on terms of equality and mutual respect, as Canada and the United States have lived for generations.
Harry S. Truman
#53. There shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin.
Harry S. Truman
#54. Well, I wouldn't say that I was in the great class, but I had a great time while I was trying to be great.
Harry S. Truman
#55. He wanted to know what assurance we could give the American people that we aren't getting the tar licked out of us by the North Korean army. It has never happened to us. It won't happen this time.
Harry S. Truman
#57. I have no desire to crow over anybody or to see anybody eating crow, figuratively or otherwise. We should all get together and make a country in which everybody can eat turkey whenever he pleases.
Harry S. Truman
#58. The only thing new in this world is the history that you don't know.
Harry S. Truman
#59. The world has experienced a revival of an old faith in the everlasting moral force of justice. At no time in history has there been a more important Conference, or a more necessary meeting, than this one in San Francisco, which you are opening today.
Harry S. Truman
#60. The Marine Corps is the Navy's police force and as long as I am President that is what it will remain. They have a propaganda machine that is almost equal to Stalin's.
Harry S. Truman
#61. But we are only termites on a planet and maybe when we bore too deeply into the planet there'll be a reckoning. Who knows?
Harry S. Truman
#62. Our religious faith gives us the answer to the false beliefs of Communism ... I have the feeling that God has created us and brought us to our present position of power and strength for some great purpose.
Harry S. Truman
#63. Why, this fellow doesn't know any more about politics than a pig knows about Sunday.
Harry S. Truman
#64. As soon as the war was over, they had to justify what was done.
Harry S. Truman
#65. The difficulty with businessmen entering politics, after they've had a successful business career, is that they want to start at the top.
Harry S. Truman
#66. For reasons of national security and out of consideration for some people still alive I have omitted certain material. Some of this material cannot be made available for many years, perhaps for many generations.
Harry S. Truman
#67. One of the difficulties with all our institutions is the fact that we've emphasized the reward instead of the service.
Harry S. Truman
#68. You can never get all the facts from just one newspaper, and unless you have all the facts, you cannot make proper judgements about what is going on.
Harry S. Truman
#69. All my life, whenever it comes time to make a decision, I make it and forget about it.
Harry S. Truman
#70. It doesn't matter how big a ranch you own or how many cows you brand, the size of your funeral is still gonna depend on the weather.
Harry S. Truman
#71. The United States is not so strong, the final triumph of the democratic ideal is not so inevitable that we can ignore what the world thinks of us or our record.
Harry S. Truman
#72. I got very well acquainted with Joe Stalin, and I like old Joe! He is a decent fellow. But Joe is a prisoner of the Politburo.
Harry S. Truman
#73. I remember when I first came to Washington. For the first six months you wonder how the hell you ever got here. For the next six months you wonder how the hell the rest of them ever got here.
Harry S. Truman
#74. Being a president is like riding a tiger. A man has to keep on riding or he is swallowed.
Harry S. Truman
#76. If we let Korea down, the Soviet[s] will keep right on going and swallow up one [place] after another.
Harry S. Truman
#77. May we Americans all live up to our glorious heritage.
Harry S. Truman
#78. I couldn't see well enough to play (baseball) when I was a boy, so they gave me a special job - they made me an umpire.
Harry S. Truman
#79. The only thing you have to worry about is bad luck. I never had bad luck.
Harry S. Truman
#80. Not every reader is a leader, but every leader must be a reader.
Harry S. Truman
#81. A politician is a man who understands government. A statesman is a politician who's been dead for 15 years.
Harry S. Truman
#82. Yours is not the task of making your way in the world, but the task of remaking the world which you will find before you.
Harry S. Truman
#83. How do you live a long life? "Take a two-mile walk every morning before breakfast."
Harry S. Truman
#84. I think there is an immense shortage of Christian charity among so-called Christians.
Harry S. Truman
#85. If you can't stand the heat, then move to Minnesota. They have snow in May.
Harry S. Truman
#86. Politics is a fascinating game, because politics is government. It is the art of government.
Harry S. Truman
#87. This generation, raised on "Eyewitness News," conditioned by the instant replay, and spared the illumination that comes from tedious historical study, tends to be even more ahistorical than most.
Harry S. Truman
#88. If wars in the future are to be prevented the nations must be united in their determination to keep the peace under law.
Harry S. Truman
#89. I have to decide Japanese strategy - shall we invade Japan proper or shall we bomb and blockade? That is my hardest decision to date. But I'll make it when I have all the facts.
Harry S. Truman
#90. All through history it's the nations that have given most to generals and the least to the people that have been the first to fall
Harry S. Truman
#91. I can assure you that flying saucers, given that they exist, are not constructed by any power on Earth.
Harry S. Truman
#92. No one in the world can take the place of your mother. Right or wrong, from her viewpoint you are always right. She may scold you for little things, but never for the big ones.
Harry S. Truman
#93. The United States recognizes the provisional government as the de facto authority of the new State of Israel.
Harry S. Truman
#94. Men make history and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better.
Harry S. Truman
#95. I said that an expert was a fella who was afraid to learn anything new because then he wouldn't be an expert anymore.
Harry S. Truman
#96. The United States should not under any circumstances throw away our gun until we are sure the rest of the world cannot arm against us.
Harry S. Truman
#97. My father was not a failure. After all, he was the father of a president of the United States.
Harry S. Truman
#98. Any man who has had the job I've had and didn't have a sense of humor wouldn't still be here.
Harry S. Truman
#99. If you can't convince them [with your logic] then just confound them [with your wit.]
Harry S. Truman
#100. I don't want this office, this responsibility, any longer, even if you want me. Find the strongest and most able and God bless you. Good-bye.
Harry S. Truman
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