Harry S. Truman Quotes

It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you don’t care who gets the credit.

The buck stops here.

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

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.

The only thing new in the world is the history you don’t know.

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.

The reward of suffering is experience.

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.

The best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.

Action is the foundational key to all success.

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.

When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship.

The human animal cannot be trusted for anything good except en masse. The combined thought and action of the whole people of any race, creed or nationality, will always point in the right direction.

Harry S. Truman Quotes part 2

The highest glory of the American Revolution was this – that it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.

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

Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.

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

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.

You can always amend a big plan, but you can never expand a little one. I don’t believe in little plans. I believe in plans big enough to meet a situation which we can’t possibly foresee now.

Whenever you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship.

My choices in life were either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth, there’s hardly any difference!

I have no trouble with my enemies. I can take care of my enemies all right. But my damn friends… they’re the ones that keep me walking the floor nights!

It is understanding that gives us an ability to have peace. When we understand the other fellow’s viewpoint, and he understands ours, then we can sit down and work out our differences.

There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know.

You want a friend in Washington? Get a dog!

The president can’t make us free any more than the king could. We have to make ourselves free.

The more freedom we enjoy, the greater the responsibility we bear, toward others as well as ourselves.

The Marine Corps is the Navy’s police force and, as long as I’m President, that is what it will remain. They have a propaganda machine that is almost equal to Stalin’s.

The best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.

Not all readers become leaders, but all leaders must become readers.

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

I learned long ago never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.

You don’t have to be indecisive to be open-minded; and you don’t have to be simplistic to be decisive.

The atom bomb was no ‘great decision’. It was merely another powerful weapon in the arsenal of righteousness.

In my opinion, leadership cannot be taught. It can only be learned.

Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better.

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

Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire.

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.

You can’t get rich in politics unless you’re a crook.

There is nothing wrong with America that the faith, love of freedom, intelligence, and energy of her citizens can not cure.

Republicans believe every day is the Fourth of July, but the Democrats believe every day is April 15.

There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept.

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

If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.