Quotes By Harry S. Truman

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.

I would rather have peace in the world than be President.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Whenever a fellow tells me he's bipartisan, I know he's going to vote against me.

All my life, whenever it comes time to make a decision, I make it and forget about it.

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

Study men, not historians.

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.

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

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

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 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.

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.

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

You want a friend in Washington? Get a dog.

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 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.

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

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

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

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

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.

Richard Nixon is a no good, lying bastard. He can lie out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, and if he ever caught himself telling the truth, he'd lie just to keep his hand in.