Harry S. Truman Quotes

I have to decide Japanese strategy - shall we invade Japan proper or shall we bomb and blockade? That is my hardest decision to date. But I'll make it when I have all the facts.

In my opinion eight years as president is enough and sometimes too much for any man to serve in that capacity.

No one who has not had the responsibility can really understand what it is like to be President, not even his closest aides or members of his immediate family. There is no end to the chain of responsibility that binds him, and he is never allowed to forget that he is President.

When we understand the other fellow's viewpoint - understand what he is trying to do - nine times out of ten he is trying to do right.

Canada and the United States have reached the point where we no longer think of each other as 'foreign' countries. We think of each other as friends, as peaceful and cooperative neighbors on a spacious and fruitful continent.

Justice remains the greatest power on earth. To that tremendous power alone will we submit.

The 'C' students run the world.

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

Study men, not historians.

Being too good is apt to be uninteresting.

Andrew Johnson wasn't too bad, but he was overwhelmed by a hostile Congress.

But Quantrill and his men were no more bandits than the men on the other side. I've been to reunions of Quantrill's men two or three times. All they were trying to do was protect the property on the Missouri side of the line.

We worship money instead of honour.

Without a strong educational system — free of government control — democracy is crippled. Knowledge is not only the key to power. It is the citadel of human freedom.

I want a one-armed economist, that way he cannot say, 'on the other hand'.

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.

The difficulty with businessmen entering politics, after they've had a successful business career, is that they want to start at the top.

When we refused to be forced out of Berlin, we demonstrated to the people of Europe that with their cooperation we would act, and act resolutely, when their freedom was threatened.

This [minimum wage] legislation, passed by the 81st Congress at its first session, is an important addition to the laws we live by. It is a measure dictated by social justice. It adds to our economic strength. It is founded on the belief that full human dignity requires at least a minimum level of economic sufficiency and security.

I'm very proud that I'm smart enough to get to the point

Imperfect action is better than perfect inaction.

I had faith in Israel before it was established, I have faith in it now.

We must build a new world, a far better world - one in which the eternal dignity of man is respected.

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.

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.

This generation, raised on "Eyewitness News," conditioned by the instant replay, and spared the illumination that comes from tedious historical study, tends to be even more ahistorical than most.

If there is one basic element in our Constitution, it is civilian control of the military.

A politician is a man who understands government, and it takes a politician to run a government. A statesman is a politician who's been dead 10 or 15 years.

How do you live a long life? "Take a two-mile walk every morning before breakfast."

It's tougher to be a football coach than the President of the United States. You've got four years as a president, and they guard you. A football coach doesn't have anyone to protect him when things go wrong.

It's not the hand that signs the laws that holds the destiny of America. It's the hand that casts the ballot.

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.

Divine Providence has played a great part in our history. I have the feeling that God has created us and brought us to our present position of power and strength for some great purpose. It is not given to us to know fully what that purpose is, but I think we may be sure of one thing, and that is that our country is intended to do all it can, in cooperating with other nations to help created peace and preserve peace in the world. It is given to defend the spiritual values-the moral code-against the vast forces of evil that seek to destroy them.

The greatest honor that has come to me, and that can ever come to me in my life, is to be Grand Master of Masons in Missouri.

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.

Most of the problems a President has to face have their roots in the past.

Politics is a fascinating game, because politics is government. It is the art of government.

Intense feeling too often obscures the truth.

Secrecy and a free, democratic government don't mix.

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

But all of us-at home, at war, wherever we may be-are within the reach of God's love and power. We all can pray. We all should pray. We should ask the fulfillment of God's will.

Men make history, not the other way around.

Democrats work to help people who need help. That other party, they work for people who don't need help. That's all there is to it.

Having found the bomb we have used it. We have used it against those who attacked us without warning at Pearl Harbor, against those who have starved and beaten and executed American prisoners of war, against those who have abandoned all pretense of obeying international laws of warfare. We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war, in order to save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans.

The true foundation of the brotherhood of humankind is belief in the knowledge that God is the Father of humankind. For us, therefore, brotherhood is not only a generous impulse but also a divine command.

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.

One of the presidents we could have done without.... There are some things I admire about Tyler, but there were also plenty of things that weren't so admirable.... The reason I have a certain amount of grudging respect for John Tyler is that he knew his own mind and stuck to his decisions.

When the decision is up before you-and on my desk I have a motto which says "The buck stops here"-the decision has to be made.