Harry Truman Quotes

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.

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

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

Carry the battle to them. Don’t let them bring it to you.

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

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.

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

America was established not to create wealth but to realize a vision, to realize an ideal – to discover and maintain liberty among men.

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

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

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 Quotes part 2

The presidency is not merely an administrative office… That’s the least of it. It is more than an engineering job, efficient or inefficient. It is preeminently a place of moral leadership.

Intense feeling too often obscures the truth.

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

Being too good is apt to be uninteresting.

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.

We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorns have roses.

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

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

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.

You want a friend in Washington? Get a dog.

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

The human animal cannot be trusted for anything good except en masse.

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.

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

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

I have no use for people who throw their weight around as celebrities, or for those who fawn over you just because you are famous.

A politician is a man who understands government. A statesman is a politician who’s been dead for 15 years.

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

There is always some kid who may be seeing me for the first or last time, I owe him my best.

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

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.

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

I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it’s hell.

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 know that being an American is more than a matter of where your parents came from. It is a belief that all men are created free and equal and that everyone deserves an even break.

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.

No person who denies the existence of Israel can be elected President.

The president – whoever he is – has to decide. He can’t pass the buck to anybody. No one else can do the deciding for him. That’s his job.

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.

By the simple token of not accepting defeat, the Japanese have pointed a moral, and with every victory their moral increases. We should not make the mistake of thinking the Japanese destined to be mudsills.

The atom bomb was no great decision.

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.