Top 80 Harry Truman Quotes
#1. It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.
Harry Truman
#3. The dictators of the world say that if you tell a lie often enough, why, people will believe it. Well, if you tell the truth often enough, they'll believe it and go along with you.
Harry Truman
#4. Brave men don't belong to any one country. I respect bravery wherever I see it.
Harry Truman
#5. Dictatorship, by whatever name, is founded on the doctrine that the individual amounts to nothing; that the State is the only one that counts; and that men and women and children were put on earth solely for the purpose of serving the state.
Harry Truman
#6. I don't believe in anti-anything. A man has to have a program; you have to be for something, otherwise you will never get anywhere.
Harry Truman
#7. Fame is a vapor, popularity is an accident, riches take wings, those who cheer today may curse tomorrow and only one thing endures - character.
Harry Truman
#10. I come to the office each morning and stay for long hours doing what has to be done to the best of my ability. And when you've done the best you can, you can't do any better.
Harry Truman
#11. In reading the lives of great men, I found that the first victory they won was over themselves ... self-discipline with all of them came first.
Harry Truman
#12. worked, the bomb, in all probability, would shorten
Harry Truman
#13. America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination, and unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.
Harry Truman
#15. Poor Ike. He'll say do this and do that and nothing at all will happen.
Harry Truman
#16. My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference.
Harry Truman
#17. We must have strong minds, ready to accept facts as they are.
Harry Truman
#18. You want a friend in this city? [Washington, DC.] Get a dog!
Harry Truman
#19. Since childhood at my mother's knee, I have believed in honor, ethics and right living as its own reward. I find a very small minority who agree with me on that premise.
Harry Truman
#20. him up, of course. I don't know whether they
Harry Truman
#21. The responsibility of the great states is to serve and not to dominate the world.
Harry Truman
#22. [I am] just a common everyday man whose instincts are to be ornery, who's anxious to be right.
Harry Truman
#24. Experience has shown how deeply the seeds of war are planted by economic rivalry and social injustice.
Harry Truman
#25. The Republicans believe in the minimum wage
the more the minimum, the better.
Harry Truman
#26. There's nothing better than cake but more cake.
Harry Truman
#27. Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.
Harry Truman
#28. It is ignorance that causes most mistakes.
Harry Truman
#29. We must remember that the test of our religious principles lies not just in what we say, not only in our prayers, not even in living blameless lives - but in what we do for others
Harry Truman
#30. I'm just a politician from Missouri and proud of it.
Harry Truman
#31. The only thing new in the world is the history you do not know.
Harry Truman
#32. The only things worth learning are the things you learn after you know it all.
Harry Truman
#33. A person who is fundamentally honest doesn't need a code of ethics. The Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount are all the ethical code anybody needs.
Harry Truman
#34. Once a decision was made, I didn't worry about it afterward ...
Harry Truman
#35. Tact is the ability to step on a man's toes without messing up the shine on his shoes.
Harry Truman
#36. The most peaceful thing in the world is plowing a field. Chances are you'll do your best thinking that way. And that's why I've always thought and said, farmers are the smartest people in the world, they don't go for high hats and they can spot a phony a mile off.
Harry Truman
#37. It is important to the peace of the world to understand each other and have full faith in each other's sincerity. That is all we ask; that is all we want[ ... ]
Harry Truman
#38. Not all readers become leaders, but all leaders must be readers.
Harry Truman
#39. I never did give them hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell.
Harry Truman
#40. everything I've read about his death indicates that he died peacefully, and perhaps he died because he'd accomplished his purpose. He
Harry Truman
#41. The only thing that's really new is the history you don't know.
Harry Truman
#42. Selfishness and greed, individual or national, cause most of our troubles.
Harry Truman
#43. I wonder how far Moses would have gone if he'd taken a poll in Egypt?
Harry Truman
#44. How many times do you have to get hit over the head until you figure out who's hitting you.
Harry Truman
#45. He was a windbag. He made a great many orations, and I imagine he did a very good job, but he was still a windbag
Harry Truman
#46. I fired MacArthur because he wouldn't respect the authority of the president. I didn't fire him because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was.
Harry Truman
#47. I fear we are too much concerned with material things to remember that our real strength lies in spiritual values.
Harry Truman
#48. Republicans don't like people to talk about depressions. You can hardly blame them for that. You remember the old saying: Don't talk about rope in the house where somebody has been hanged.
Harry Truman
#49. We believe that all men are created equal because they are created in the image of God.
Harry Truman
#50. You know when people can get excited over the ordinary things in life, they live
Harry Truman
#51. Some smart alecs of those days after World War I used to say: The French fought for liberty, the British fought to control the seas, but the Americans fought for souvenirs.
Harry Truman
#52. Men often mistake notoriety for fame, and would rather be noticed for their vices than not be noticed at all.
Harry Truman
#53. Actions are the seeds of fate. Deeds grow into destiny.
Harry Truman
#54. Mama and Papa are more to blame (for delinquency) than the kids; parents should stay home and raise their children and spend less time in taverns.
Harry Truman
#55. Human life is something that comes to us from beyond this world, and the purpose of our society is to cherish it and to enable the individual to attain the highest achievement of which he is capable
Harry Truman
#57. I hope for some sort of peace - but I fear that machines are ahead of morals by some centuries and when morals catch up there'll be no reason for any of it.
Harry Truman
#58. We should resolve now that the health of this nation is a national concern; that financial barriers in the way of attaining health shall be removed; that the health of all it's citizens deserves the help of all the nation.
Harry Truman
#59. It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose your own.
Harry Truman
#60. I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.
Harry Truman
#61. In most of my campaigns, I find it is best not to mention my opponent by name because, by doing so, it just gives him a chance to get into the headlines.
Harry Truman
#62. A bureaucrat is a Democrat who holds some office that a Republican wants.
Harry Truman
#63. No nation on this globe should be more internationally minded than America because it was built by all nations.
Harry Truman
#64. I shall continue to do what I think is right, whether anybody likes it or not.
Harry Truman
#65. Politics sure is the ruination of many a good man.
Harry Truman
#66. I once described Washington as a doer surrounded by thinkers. He knew how to make the thinkers work for him, and only a truly superb politician and leader is able to do that.
Harry Truman
#68. Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.
Harry Truman
#69. Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a Republican. But I repeat myself.
Harry Truman
#70. A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties.
Harry Truman
#71. Within the first few months I discovered that being President is like riding a tiger. A man has to keep on riding or be swallowed.
Harry Truman
#72. I won't sell influence and I'm perfectly willing to be cussed if I'm right.
Harry Truman
#73. There is a lure in power. It can get into a man's blood just as gambling and lust for money have been known to do.
Harry Truman
#74. The fundamental basis of this nation's laws was given to Moses on the Mount ... If we don't have a proper fundamental moral background, we will finally end up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in rights for anybody except the State.
Harry Truman
#75. I never would have agreed to the formulation of the Central Intelligence Agency back in forty-seven, if I had known it would become the American Gestapo.
Harry Truman
#76. My definition of a leader in a free country is a man who can persuade people to do what they don't want to do, or do what they're too lazy to do, and like it.
Harry Truman
#77. If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible, although I don't want to see Hitler victorious under any circumstances.
Harry Truman
#79. I doubt if there is any problem in the world today - social, political or economic - that would not find a happy solution if approached in the spirit of the sermon on the mount.
Harry Truman
#80. Richard Nixon is a no good, lying bastard. He can lie out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, and if he ever caught himself telling the truth, he'd lie just to keep his hand in.
Harry Truman
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