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Harry S Truman Quotes

Total quotes: 41
“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 S Truman, Where the Buck Stops: The Personal and Private Writings of Harry S. Truman
Tagged: Washington, dC, Doers, Thinkers
“The Russians are liars – you can't trust them. At Potsdam they agreed to everything and broke their word. It's too bad the second world power is like this, but that's the way it is, and we must keep our strength.”
— Harry S Truman, The Memoirs of Richard Nixon
Tagged: russians, liars, Potsdam, strength
“Nothing is more essential to the future peace of the world than continued cooperation of the nations which had to muster the force necessary to defeat the conspiracy of the Axis powers to dominate the world.”
— Harry S Truman
Tagged: War, Peace, Cooperation, Nations, Axis, UN
“No government is perfect. One of the chief virtues of a democracy, however, is that its defects are always visible and under democratic processes can be pointed out and corrected.”
— Harry S Truman
Tagged: Government, Perfect, Democracy
“At the present moment in world history nearly every nation must choose between alternative ways of life. The choice is too often not a free one.”
— Harry S Truman
Tagged: world history, nation, Choice, Freedom
“They are trying to make an elder statesmen of me, but they will never succeed.”
— Harry S Truman, Mr. Citizen
Tagged: Elder Statesman
“My favorite animal is the mule. He has more sense than a horse. He knows when to stop eating — and when to stop working.”
— Harry S Truman, Mr. Citizen
Tagged: Mule, Horse, Sense
“I sit here all day trying to persuade people to do the things they ought to have sense enough to do without my persuading them…that's all the powers of the President amount to.”
— Harry S Truman, Presidential Power: The Politics of Leadership
Tagged: Persuasion, Presidency
“In this shrinking world, it is futile to seek safety behind geographical barriers. Real security will be found only in law and in justice.”
— Harry S Truman
Tagged: Shrinking World, Law, Justice, Borders
“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 S Truman, Where the Buck Stops: The Personal and Private Writings of Harry S. Truman
Tagged: leader, Persuasion
“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 S Truman, Where the Buck Stops: The Personal and Private Writings of Harry S. Truman
Tagged: Dictators, Truth, lying
“No nation on this globe should be more internationally minded than America because it was built by all nations.”
— Harry S Truman, Good Old Harry; The Wit and Wisdom of Harry S. Truman
Tagged: America, Globalism, Nations
“I sincerely wish that every member of Congress could visit the displaced person's camp in Germany and Austria and see just what is happening to 500,000 human beings through no fault of their own.”
— Harry S Truman, Great Jewish Quotations: By Jews and About Jews
Tagged: Germany, Austria, Concentration Camps, Nazis
“Invasion and conquest by Communist armies would be a horror beyond our capacity to imagine. But invasion and conquest by Communist ideas of right and wrong would be just as bad.”
— Harry S Truman
Tagged: Communism, Red Scare
“And as I say to you, whenever you put a man on the Supreme Court, he ceases to be your friend, you can be sure of that.”
— Harry S Truman, Truman Speaks: On the Presidency, the Constitution, and Statecraft
Tagged: Supreme Court, Friendship
“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, Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman
Tagged: President, Presidency, 21-Gun Salute, Honor
“I never gave anybody hell. I just told the truth and they think it's hell.”
— Harry S Truman, My Fellow Americans with 2 CDs, 2E: The Most Important Speeches of America's Presidents, from George Washington to Barack Obama
Tagged: Truth, Give 'em Hell
“My forebears were Confederates...but my very stomach turned over when I had learned that Negro soldiers, just back from overseas, were being dumped out of Army trucks in Mississippi and beaten.”
— Harry S Truman, Harry S. Truman by Margaret Truman(1993-05-01)
Tagged: Confederates, Negroes, racism, Mississippi
“So much blood has already been shed for the ideals which we cherish, and for which Franklin Delano Roosevelt lived and died, that we dare not permit even a momentary pause in the hard fight for victory.”
— Harry S Truman
Tagged: Bloodshed, World War II, FDR, victory
“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
Tagged: Wars, Peace, Future, UN
“Some of my best friends never agree with me politically.”
— Harry S Truman, The Memoirs of Richard Nixon
“The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know.”
— Harry S Truman, Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman
Tagged: History, New, Revisionism
“I do not believe in shooting anything that cannot shoot back.”
— Harry S Truman, Mr. Citizen
Tagged: Fairness
“We want no Gestapo or Secret Police. F.B.I. is tending in that direction. They are dabbling in sex life scandles [sic] and plain blackmail when they should be catching criminals. They also have a habit of sneering at local law enforcement officers.”
— Harry S Truman
Tagged: Gestapo, F.B.I., Secret Police, Sex Scandals
“The Russians are like us, they look and act like us. They are fine people. They got along with our soldiers in Berlin very well. As far as I am concerned, they can have whatever they want just so they don't try to impose their system on others.”
— Harry S Truman, The Memoirs of Richard Nixon
Tagged: russians, Nazis, Soviets, Berlin, Communism
“The people can never understand why the President does not use his powers to make them 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.”
— Harry S Truman, Good Old Harry; The Wit and Wisdom of Harry S. Truman
Tagged: President, Presidential Powers, Public Relations, flattering, Kissing
“I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures. 
I believe that we must assist free peoples to work out their own destinies in their own way.”
— Harry S Truman
Tagged: US Intervention, Armed Insurrection, Freedom
“In bitter despair, some people have come to believe that wars are inevitable. With tragic fatalism, they insist that wars have always been, of necessity, and of necessity wars always will be. To such defeatism, men and women of good will must not and can not yield. The outlook for humanity is not so hopeless.”
— Harry S Truman
Tagged: Despair, War, Defeatism, humanity
“It is my deep conviction that we have reached a turning point in our country’s efforts to guarantee freedom and equality to all our citizens. Recent events in the United States and abroad have made us realize that it is more important today than ever before to insure that all Americans enjoy these rights. When I say all Americans, I mean all Americans.”
— Harry S Truman, Speech to the NAACP
Tagged: Freedom, Equality, citizens, Americans, rights
“All freedom-loving nations, not the United States alone, are facing a stern challenge from the Communist tyranny. In the circumstances, alarm is justified. The man who isn't alarmed simply doesn't understand the situation — or he is crazy. But alarm is one thing, and hysteria is another. Hysteria impels people to destroy the very thing they are struggling to preserve.”
— Harry S Truman
Tagged: Freedom, First World, Second World, Communism, Iron Curtain, Alarm, Hysteria
“It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin. This policy shall be put into effect as rapidly as possible, having due regard to the time required to effectuate any necessary changes without impairing efficiency or morale.”
— Harry S Truman
Tagged: Opportunity, racism, discrimination, Armed Forces, Race, Color, National Origin, Religion
“I am not worried about the Communist Party taking over the Government of the United States, but I am against a person, whose loyalty is not to the Government of the United States, holding a Government job. They are entirely different things. I am not worried about this country ever going Communist. We have too much sense for that.”
— Harry S Truman
Tagged: Communist Party, Red Scare, McCarthyism
“Here in America, we have labored long and hard to achieve a social order worthy of our great heritage. In our time, tremendous progress has been made toward a really democratic way of life. Let me assure the forward-looking people of America that there will be no relaxation in our efforts to improve the lot of the common people.”
— Harry S Truman
Tagged: Social Justice, America, Progress, Common People
“Of course, there are dangers in religious freedom and freedom of opinion. But to deny these rights is worse than dangerous, it is absolutely fatal to liberty. The external threat to liberty should not drive us into suppressing liberty at home. Those who want the Government to regulate matters of the mind and spirit are like men who are so afraid of being murdered that they commit suicide to avoid assassination.”
— Harry S Truman
Tagged: Religious Freedom, Free Speech, Liberty, Government
“It is not enough to yearn for peace. We must work, and if necessary, fight for it. The task of creating a sound international organization is complicated and difficult. Yet, without such organization, the rights of man on earth cannot be protected. Machinery for the just settlement of international differences must be found. Without such machinery, the entire world will have to remain an armed camp. The world will be doomed to deadly conflict, devoid of hope for real peace.”
— Harry S Truman
Tagged: Peace, Fighting Spirit, Organization, Conflict, UN
“People who run for office and are defeated aren’t rejected in the usual sense of the word. They’re just defeated because they couldn’t get enough votes that one time. It doesn’t mean the public despises them. It’s a preference for somebody else for that particular office at that particular moment, that’s all. The examples I’ve given have shown that when those men were passed up, they were still highly thought of and were still great men. There were a good many like that. You take the Adams family. After John Quincy Adams passed on, there were Adams descendants in Lincoln’s cabinet. They wrote important histories and things of that kind. Even in the states, some good men are governors who have been defeated previously in elections, even in previous tries for governor. If they don’t become pessimists and decide to lay down and take it, if they get up and start over again, why, they don’t have any trouble.”
— Harry S Truman, Where the Buck Stops: The Personal and Private Writings of Harry S. Truman
Tagged: Politicians, John Quincy Adams
“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.”
— Harry S Truman, Good Old Harry; The Wit and Wisdom of Harry S. Truman
Tagged: Socialism, Big Government, New Deal
“I've seen it happen time after time. When the Democratic candidate allows himself to be put on the defensive and starts apologizing for the New Deal and the fair Deal, and says he really doesn't believe in them, he is sure to lose. The people don't want a phony Democrat. If it's a choice between a genuine Republican, and a Republican in Democratic clothing, the people will choose the genuine article, every time; that is, they will take a Republican before they will a phony Democrat, and I don't want any phony Democratic candidates in this campaign.”
— Harry S Truman
Tagged: Republicans, Democrats, Phony, Genuine, Genuine Article
“Mrs. Roosevelt seemed calm in her characteristic, graceful dignity. She stepped forward and placed her arm gently about my shoulder. ‘Harry,’ she said quietly, ‘the President is dead.’ For a moment, I could not bring myself to speak. The last news we had had from Warm Springs was that Mr. Roosevelt was recuperating nicely. In fact, he was apparently doing so well that no member of his immediate family, and not even his personal physician, was with him. All this flashed through my mind before I found my voice. ‘Is there anything I can do for you?’ I asked at last. I shall never forget her deeply understanding reply. ‘Is there anything we can do for you?’ she asked. ‘For you are the one in trouble now.’”
— Harry S Truman, 1945: Year of Decision
Tagged: Eleanor Roosevelt, FDR, Warm Springs
“Mr. Luce, you've asked a fair question and I'll give you a fair answer. I've been in politics thirty-five years and everything that could be said about a human being has been said about me. But my wife has never been in politics. She has always conducted herself in a circumspect manner and no one has a right to make derogatory remarks about her. Now your wife has said many unkind and untrue things about Mrs. Truman. And as long as I am in residence here, she'll not be a guest in the White House.”
— Harry S Truman, Good Old Harry; The Wit and Wisdom of Harry S. Truman
Tagged: White House, Bess Truman, Henry Luce
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