Harry Truman Quotes

It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.

Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.

Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear." [Special Message to the Congress on the Internal Security of the United States, August 8, 1950]

It’s a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it’s a depression when you lose your own.

The only thing new in the world is the history you do not know.

Fame is a vapor, popularity is an accident, riches take wings, those who cheer today may curse tomorrow and only one thing endures - character.

I never did give them hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell.

If you can't convince them, confuse them.

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a Republican. But I repeat myself.

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

Selfishness and greed, individual or national, cause most of our troubles.

Tact is the ability to step on a man's toes without messing up the shine on his shoes.

The Republicans believe in the minimum wage -- the more the minimum, the better.

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.

Never kick a fresh turd on a hot day.

Republicans approve of the American farmer, but they are willing to help him go broke. They stand four-square for the American home--but not for housing. They are strong for labor--but they are stronger for restricting labor's rights. They favor minimum wage--the smaller the minimum wage the better. They endorse educational opportunity for all--but they won't spend money for teachers or for schools. They think modern medical care and hospitals are fine--for people who can afford them. They consider electrical power a great blessing--but only when the private power companies get their rake-off. They think American standard of living is a fine thing--so long as it doesn't spread to all the people. And they admire of Government of the United States so much that they would like to buy it.

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.

You want a friend in this city? [Washington, DC.] Get a dog!

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.

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.

Once a decision was made, I didn't worry about it afterward...

America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination, and unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.

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.

A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties.

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.

There's nothing better than cake but more cake.

Show me a man that gets rich by being a politician, and I'll show you a crook.

Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.

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.

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.

[The American President] has to take all sorts of abuse from liars and demagogues.… The people can never understand why the President does not use his supposedly great power to make ’em behave. Well, all the President is, is a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway.

The reward of suffering is experience.

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.

The 'C' students run the world.

It is ignorance that causes most mistakes.

Give me a one-handed Economist. All my economists say 'on hand...', then 'but on the other...

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.

You can accomplish anything in life, provided that you do not mind who gets the credit. —HARRY S. TRUMAN1

A bureaucrat is a Democrat who holds some office that a Republican wants.

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.

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.

We must have strong minds, ready to accept facts as they are.

Men often mistake notoriety for fame, and would rather be noticed for their vices than not be noticed at all.

Brave men don't belong to any one country. I respect bravery wherever I see it.

If you can't dance then you are a loser.

Hi Allan, it's Harry' 'Which Harry?' 'Truman, Allan. Harry S. Truman, the president, damn it!' 'How nice! That was a good meal we had Mr President, thank you. I hope you weren't required to fly the plane home?

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.

Believe and you're halfway there.

How many times do you have to get hit over the head until you figure out who’s hitting you.

No nation on this globe should be more internationally minded than America because it was built by all nations.

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

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.

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.

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.

Actions are the seeds of fate. Deeds grow into destiny.

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.

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.

Millions of our citizens do not now have a full measure of opportunity to achieve and to enjoy good health. Millions do not now have protection or security against the economic effects of sickness. And the time has now arrived for action to help them attain that opportunity and to help them get that protection.

Experience has shown how deeply the seeds of war are planted by economic rivalry and social injustice.

Harry Truman never said ‘Give ’em hell.’ He said, ‘I just told him the truth and they thought it was hell.

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.

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.

America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand." -Harry S. Truman

The buck stops here.

The only things worth learning are the things you learn after you know it all.

[we are] going to continue to fight communism. Now I am going to tell you how we are not going to fight communism. We are not going to transform our fine FBI into a Gestapo secret police. That is what some people would like to do. We are not going to try to control what our people read and say and think. We are not going to turn the United States into a right-wing totalitarian country in order to deal with a left-wing totalitarian threat.

Truman makes friends without influencing people,' noted Arthur Schlesinger Jr. 'Dewey influences people without making friends.

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

I shall continue to do what I think is right, whether anybody likes it or not.

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.

Socialism is the epithet they have hurled at every advance the people have made,” President Harry Truman observed. It was “what they called public power…

He loved politics in large part exactly because it meant time spent with men like Cactus Jack Garner(who would be remembered for observing that the vice presidency was not worth a pitcher of warm piss).

If you can read this thank a teacher.

But even a wonderful soloist needs a song. Even a pitch-perfect voice needs a message.

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.

We believe that all men are created equal because they are created in the image of God.

The responsibility of the great states is to serve and not to dominate the world.

Losers break the rules. There's no point in obeying them because if you obey the unwritten rules of civility, you're going to lose anyway. So why not just do what you can?' - Zachary Karabell

Harry S. Truman, in his typical no-nonsense style, once said that ‘An expert is someone who doesn’t want to learn anything new, because then he would not be an expert.’ Expert knowledge is absolutely necessary, but

It was said in the First World War that the French fought for their country, the British fought for freedom of the seas, and the Americans fought for souvenirs.

I'm just a politician from Missouri and proud of it.

A President cannot always be popular.

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.

Politics sure is the ruination of many a good man.

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.

The Congress ran off and left everything just as I expected they would do and now they are trying to blame me because they did nothing. I just don’t believe people can be fooled that easily.

On the one hand, the Republicans are telling industrial workers that the high cost of food in the cities is due to this government's farm policy. On the other hand, the Republicans are telling the farmers that the high cost of manufactured goods on the farm is due to this government's labor policy. That's plain hokum. It's an old political trick: "If you can't convince 'em, confuse 'em." But this time it won't work.

All of you, I am sure, have heard many cries about Government interference with business and about "creeping socialism." I should like to remind the gentlemen who make these complaints that if events had been allowed to continue as they were going prior to March 4, 1933, most of them would have no businesses left for the Government or for anyone else to interfere with — and almost surely we would have socialism in this country, real socialism.

Truman said. “They cheered as if I were still president. So I pretended I was still president and waved back.

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?

Being dumb’s just about the worst thing there is when it comes to holding high office. —HARRY S. TRUMAN The worst thing a man can do is go bald. —DONALD J. TRUMP

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

Every presidential nominee says his vice president will be given a serious, important role in his new administration. But it almost never materializes. A strong, totally self-centered politician like Tom Dewey sharing his hard-won power with a vice president? Don''t count on it.' - David Brinkley

The lessons of history are manifold. Nothing happens in isolation. Everything that happens has consequences. We are all part of a larger stream of events, past, present, and future. We are all the beneficiaries of those who went before us--who built the cathedrals, who braved the unknown, who gave of their time and service, and who kept faith in the possibilities of the mind and the human spirit. An astute observer of old wrote that history is philosophy taught with examples. Harry Truman liked to say that the only new thing in the world is the history you don't know. From history we learn that sooner is not necessarily better than later ... that what we don't know can often hurt us and badly ... and that there is no such thing as a self-made man or woman. A sense of history is an antidote to self-pity and self-importance, of which there is too much in our time. To a large degree, history is a lesson in proportions.

It came down to so many factors: an underdog who refused to surrender, a presumed victor who refused to fight, disgruntled Democrats - on the left and right - who, by deserting their party, merely strengthened it, and fearful Republican farmers, who in the end, proved more farmer than Republican.

Hungry Jack’s real name was Charles R. Hoofard. He was born in Indianapolis in 1950. In 1950, Harry S. Truman was president of the United States. Harry Truman, as far as I can tell, also never took a shit in his life. In 1950, the same year that a boy named Charles R. Hoofard was born in Indianapolis, President Harry S. Truman sent military assistance to the French. They were trying to maintain their French Catholic colony in Vietnam. That military aid would grow and blossom to the point that a boy with wanderlust from Indiana named Charles R. Hoofard ultimately took time out from fucking whatever he wanted to fuck to participate in the killing of an entire village of women, elderly people, and children. History is full of shit like that.

Taft explained that the great issue in this campaign is "creeping socialism." Now that is the patented trademark of the special interest lobbies. Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years. Socialism is what they called public power. Socialism is what they called social security. Socialism is what they called farm price supports. Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance. Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations. Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people. When the Republican candidate inscribes the slogan "Down With Socialism" on the banner of his "great crusade," that is really not what he means at all. What he really means is, "Down with Progress--down with Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal," and "down with Harry Truman's fair Deal." That is what he means. (Rear Platform and Other Informal Remarks in SYRACUSE, NEW YORK (Near station, 1:25 p.m. October 10, 1952 ) trumanlibrary dot org publicpapers

1. Success is a choice. -Rick Pitino 2. Success in life comes not from holding a good hand, but in playing a poor hand well. -Warren Lester 3. I shall tell you a great secret, my friend. Do not wait for the last judgment; it takes place every day. -Albert Camus 4. If you're not fired up with enthusiasm, you'll be fired with enthusiasm. -Vince Lombardi 5. There is no security on this earth; there is only opportunity. -Douglas MacArthur 6. Yesterday's the past and tomorrow's the future. Today is a gift, which is why they call it the present. -Bill Keane 7. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure. -Thomas Edison 8. When you get to the end of your rope tie a knot and hang on. -Franklin D. Roosevelt 9. The best way to predict your future is to create it. -Author unknown 10. I always remember an epitaph which is in the cemetery at Tombstone, Arizona. It says, "Here lies Jack Williams. He done his damnedest." I think that is the greatest epitaph a man can have. -Harry S Truman 11. Triumph? Try Umph! -Author unknown 12. You hit home runs not by chance but by preparation. -Roger Maris 13. If you don't have enough pride, you're going to get your butt beat every play. -Gale Sayers 14. My mother taught me very early to believe I could achieve any accomplishment I wanted to. The first was to walk without braces. -Wilma Rudolph 15. You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it. -Margaret Thatcher

When General Eisenhower was elected president, his predecessor, Harry Truman, said: “Poor Ike; when he was a general, he gave an order and it was carried out. Now he is going to sit in that big office and he’ll give an order and not a damn thing is going to happen.” The reason why “not a damn thing is going to happen” is, however, not that generals have more authority than presidents. It is that military organizations learned long ago that futility is the lot of most orders and organized the feedback to check on the execution of the order. They learned long ago that to go oneself and look is the only reliable feedback.5 Reports—all an American president is normally able to mobilize—are not much help. All military services have long ago learned that the officer who has given an order goes out and sees for himself whether it has been carried out. At the least he sends one of his own aides—he never relies on what he is told by the subordinate to whom the order was given. Not that he distrusts the subordinate; he has learned from experience to distrust communications.

We've spoken of the Knights of the Holy Grail, Percival. Do you know what I was? The Knight of the Unholy Grail. In times like these when everyone is wonderful, what is needed is a quest for evil. You should be interested! Such a quest serves God's cause! How? Because the Good proves nothing. When everyone is wonderful, nobody bothers with God. If you had ten thousand Albert Schweitzers giving their lives for their fellow men, do you think anyone would have a second thought about God? Or suppose the Lowell Professor of Religion at Harvard should actually find the Holy Grail, dig it up in an Israeli wadi, properly authenticate it, carbon date it, and present it to the Metropolitan Museum. Millions of visitors! I would be as curious as the next person and would stand in line for hours to see it. But what different would it make in the end? People would be interested for a while, yes. This is an age of interest. But suppose you could show me one "sin," one pure act of malevolence. A different cup of tea! That would bring matters to a screeching halt. But we have plenty of evil around you say. What about Hitler, the gas ovens and so forth? What about them? As everyone knows and says, Hitler was a madman. And it seems nobody else was responsible. Everyone was following orders. It is even possible that there was no such order, that it was all a bureaucratic mistake. Show me a single "sin." One hundred and twenty thousand dead at Hiroshima? Where was the evil of that? Was Harry Truman evil? As for the pilot and bombardier, they were by all accounts wonderful fellows, good fathers and family men. "Evil" is surely the clue to this age, the only quest appropriate to the age. For everything and everyone's either wonderful or sick and nothing is evil. God may be absent, but what if one should find the devil? Do you think I wouldn't be pleased to meet the devil? Ha, ha, I'd shake his hand like a long-lost friend. The mark of the age is that terrible things happen but there is no "evil" involved. People are either crazy, miserable, or wonderful, so where does the "evil" come in? There I was forty-five years old and I didn't know whether there was "evil" in the world.