Quotes By Harry S. Truman

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

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.

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

A President needs political understanding to run the government, but he may be elected without it.

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.

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

I had faith in Israel before it was established, I have in it now. I believe it has a glorious future before it - not just another sovereign nation, but as an embodiment of the great ideals of our civilization.

Intense feeling too often obscures the truth.

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

It's plain hokum. If you can't convince 'em, confuse 'em. It's an old political trick. But this time it won't work.

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

The buck stops here!

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.

A President cannot always be popular.

Any man who has had the job I've had and didn't have a sense of humor wouldn't still be here.

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

I've said many a time that I think the Un-American Activities Committee in the House of Representatives was the most un-American thing in America!

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

It sure is hell to be president.

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.

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 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 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.

Actions are the seed of fate deeds grow into destiny.

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

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.

You can never get all the facts from just one newspaper, and unless you have all the facts, you cannot make proper judgements about what is going on.

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

I never gave 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.