Harry S. Truman's Quotes

The White House is the finest prison in the world.

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

If I'd known how much packing I'd have to do, I'd have run again.

The United Nations is designed to make possible lasting freedom and independence for all its members.

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.

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

Art is parasitic on life, just as criticism is parasitic on art.

Being too good is apt to be uninteresting.

If I hadn't been President of the United States, I probably would have ended up a piano player in a bawdy house.

My father was not a failure. After all, he was the father of a president of the United States.

This administration is going to be cussed and discussed for years to come.

Washington is a very easy city for you to forget where you came from and why you got there in the first place.

A president either is constantly on top of events or, if he hesitates, events will soon be on top of him. I never felt that I could let up for a moment.

We shall never be able to remove suspicion and fear as potential causes of war until communication is permitted to flow, free and open, across international boundaries.

It sure is hell to be president.

Well, I wouldn't say that I was in the great class, but I had a great time while I was trying to be great.

Whenever you put a man on the Supreme Court he ceases to be your friend.

I have no desire to crow over anybody or to see anybody eating crow, figuratively or otherwise. We should all get together and make a country in which everybody can eat turkey whenever he pleases.

Nixon is one of the few in the history of this country to run for high office talking out of both sides of his mouth at the same time and lying out of both sides.

I remember when I first came to Washington. For the first six months you wonder how the hell you ever got here. For the next six months you wonder how the hell the rest of them ever got here.

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.

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.

You and I are stuck with the necessity of taking the worst of two evils or none at all. So-I'm taking the immature Democrat as the best of the two. Nixon is impossible.

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.

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

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

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

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.

A leader in the Democratic Party is a boss, in the Republican Party he is a leader.

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

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

If you can't convince them, confuse them.

I do not believe there is a problem in this country or the world today which could not be settled if approached through the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount.

You want a friend in Washington? Get a dog.

I never gave anybody hell! I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

The reward of suffering is experience.

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

Actions are the seed of fate deeds grow into destiny.