Harry S. Truman Quotes

The only thing you have to worry about is bad luck. I never had bad luck.

It sure is hell to be president.

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.

I enjoyed my new position as vice president, but it took me a while to get used to the fact that I no longer had the voting privileges I had enjoyed for 10 years as a senator.

To reporters the day after his accession to the presidency, April 13, 1945: When they told me yesterday what had happened, I felt like the moon, the stars and all the planets had fallen on me.

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

It isn't important who is ahead at one time or another, in either an election or a horse race. It's the horse that comes in first at the finish that counts

With firm faith in our hearts, to sustain us along the hard road to victory, we will find our way to a secure peace, for the ultimate benefit of all humanity.

The United States, which would live on Christian principles with all of the peoples of the world, cannot omit a fair deal for its own Indian citizens.

The only new thing is history we don't know.

If you can't convince them [with your logic] then just confound them [with your wit.]

Leadership is getting people to do things that they don't want to do.

If we let Korea down, the Soviet[s] will keep right on going and swallow up one [place] after another.

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.

If you can't dance then you are a loser.

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.

All my life I have fought against prejudice and intolerance.

Men make history. History does not make the man.

It is ignorance that causes most mistakes.

We must help to the limits of our strength. And we will.

We seek a peaceful world, a prosperous world, a free world, a world of good neighbors, living on terms of equality and mutual respect, as Canada and the United States have lived for generations.

May the sun never set on American baseball.

The United States recognizes the provisional government as the de facto authority of the new State of Israel.

Men make history, not the other way around.

Canada is a broad land - broad in mind, broad in spirit, and broad in physical expanse.

May we Americans all live up to our glorious heritage.

People are very much wrought up about the Communist bugaboo.

I like riding a bicycle built for two--by myself.

...as soon as the war was over, they had to justify what was done.

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

If wars in the future are to be prevented the nations must be united in their determination to keep the peace under law.

At the present moment in world history nearly every nation must choose between alternative ways of life. The choice is too often not a free one.

I felt like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen on me.

The reward of suffering is experience.

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 gave anybody hell! I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.

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

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

You want a friend in Washington? Get a dog.

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

But we are only termites on a planet and maybe when we bore too deeply into the planet there'll be a reckoning. Who knows?

The President spends most of his time kissing people on the cheek in order to get them to do what they ought to do without getting kissed.

'Sartor Resartus' is simply unreadable and for me that always sort of spoils a book.

How far would Moses have gone if he had taken a poll in Egypt?

Once a decision was made I did not worry about it afterward.

Democracy is based on the conviction that man has the moral and intellectual capacity as well as the inalienable right to govern himself with reason and justice.

Wherever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.

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.

The "C" students run the world.

The president is the representative of the whole nation and he's the only lobbyist that all the one hundred and sixty million people in this country have.