Harry S. Truman was the erstwhile president of the United States of America. He served from 1945 to 1953, succeeding after the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Truman is most popularly known for implementing the Marshall Plan. This plan was about the rebuilding of the economy of Western Europe.
Truman was born in a place called Missouri in the year 1884. He was the child of John Anderson Truman and Martha Ellen Young Truman. His middle initial, "S", honours his grandfathers, Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon Young. Truman's ancestry can be traced back to being primarily English with some German and French.
During World War I, he was sent to France as a captain in the Field Artillery. While returning home, he opened a haberdashery in Kansas City and later got elected as a Jackson County official in 1922. In 1934, Truman got elected to the US Senate from his hometown, that is, Missouri. He gained immense popularity as a chairman of the Truman Committee that was aimed at reducing waste in wartime contracts. After becoming the president, he sanctioned the first and only use of nuclear weapons in war.
In 1950, North Korea had invaded and raided South Korea. It was then that Truman gained the United Nations Organisation (UNO) approval to intervene in the Korean War. In 1948, he submitted the first civil rights legislation. He also signed the Executive Order 9981 to start racial integration in the military and federal agencies.
On 5th December 1972, Truman was admitted to Hospital in Kansas. He was suffering from pneumonia. He later developed multiple organ failure and died on 26th December 1972. Truman stays to be the most controversial political figure of America till date. Below are some of the famous Harry S Truman Quotes.
It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.
Most of the time, our achievements are lesser than what we may have achieved. This is so because we don't wish to coordinate with others. We always want to take the entire credit for whatever has been done. If you stop caring about credit, you can do wonders as no one would be engaged in their selfish pursuits.
Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.
If someone can read or write, it doesn't mean that the person is automatically a good leader. Being a reader doesn't guarantee all the skills that are required in a leader who has to lead a team or nation. However, all leaders must be readers as, without reading or learning, no leadership skills can be gained.
It's a recession when your neighbour loses his job; it's a depression when you lose your own.
Your neighbour losing your job may not hit you much. It must be absolutely fine for you as long as your job is safe. However, what if you lose your job? What will happen then? You will be under depression. When you go through a personal job loss, you realise the gravity of the issue.
The only thing new in the world is the history you do not know.
History is something that we don't know in its entirety. That's also because we all are born in a specific period and don't know all the periods before us. Something or the other will always go out of our sight and will not be able to come to us. Thus, the only thing in this world that's new is the history that you don't know!
If you can't convince them, confuse them.
Convincing someone can be called the toughest task. That's so because to convince someone means that you will have to influence their opinions and engage with the person's mind. However, if you can't convince someone, just confuse them. That's because confusion can work positively in convincing the person about something they do not know about!
I never did give them hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell.
Truth is bitter and blunt. It may not sound or taste as sweet as any sweetmeat. However, the truth is very powerful as an entity. Truman here tells us how humans tend to take truth as hell. He says that he never gave hell to anyone. Yet whenever he told them the truth, people took it as hell, showing us how truth is considered evil by us!
Continue reading some more Harry S Truman Quotes..
The Republicans believe in the minimum wage -- the more the minimum, the better.
Truman is attacking the Republican Party of America here or simply the Republican ideology. He says that the Republicans believe in the minimum wage system. Yet Truman mocks them by using subtle irony and satire over here. He adds that the more the minimum, the wage is better. Thus, Republicans only believe in tokenism and do not support the minimum wage.
Tact is the ability to step on a man's toes without messing up the shine on his shoes.
Tact is very crucial to politics. You cannot survive in the realm of politics if you don't know diplomacy and tact. It means that you have to carefully warn someone or do some little harm to them without making them realise anything. Just as you step on someone's toes but don't spoil the shine of it, tact is that kind of ability.
Selfishness and greed, individual or national, cause most of our troubles.
Greed, both at the level of a nation and personal level, is problematic. When you are personally selfish, you lose someone who's caring. Yet when you are greedy at the national level, you are putting the entire existence of a nation and its people in danger. If you stop being selfish, you will realise that the root of your problems will decay.
I have found the best way to advise your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.
The best advice to children is not to dissuade them from doing something that they want to. Rather if you are a parent, do something that boosts their morale. Try finding out what they love doing. Once you figure that out, sit with your children and advise and push them to do those things!
My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference.
Truman is very sarcastic over here. He says that he always wanted to do two things in life: either be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician. Yet immediately after saying this, he says there's no difference between the two. Thus, politicians are just like piano players who are playing music in a whorehouse. Their job may look different, but politics is as crass and nasty as that pianist job. Politics is a drama.
Few more Harry S Truman Quotes...
Once a decision was made, I didn't worry about it afterwards…
A decision, once made, should not be regretted. That's because whenever you are in the process of decision making, you engage yourself in a lot of deliberation. Thus, your decision should be trusted in the absolute sense by you. Wherever and whenever you make a strong decision, don't think or worry about it.
America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination, and unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.
Truman was a patriot in absolute terms. When he says these words, he is becoming the voice of every American. He is reminding the nation and its people that their country was made on the foundation of courage, imagination and determination. America wasn't built on the ashes or bones of fear.
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.
Great people are those who discipline themselves first. They look within themselves and then focus on others. Truman says that as he read the lives of great men, one common strand that bound them was that they all won over themselves first in terms of disciplining their minds and hearts. Self improvisation should be the goal.
A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties.
There's a lot of difference between a pessimist and an optimist. A pessimist is such a negative person that he/she will start looking for difficulties even in opportunities. Yet the optimist would go the other way round. He/she will turn the hurdles into smoothness and the difficulties into opportunities. An optimist will look at things very positively.
There's nothing better than cake but more cake.
This is an absolutely lovely quote, yet at the same time, so delicious and funny. Truman says that the cake is so good to taste, and he loves it. However, there's one thing even more beautiful than it. This thing is having more of a cake. Thus, with a tongue in cheek, we can call it a light-hearted quote that tells how one can never stop gushing over cake.
Some more Harry S Truman Quotes..
Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.
Having an efficient government that works smoothly without any hindrance is a grave concern. What this means is that the government is a dictatorship because democracy will have some amount of disturbance, mayhem and other things. Yet if it's a government that functions with almost no problem, then there's a big underlying problem of dictatorship existing.
We should resolve now that the health of this nation is a national concern; that financial barriers in the way of attaining health shall be removed; that the health of all its citizens deserves the help of all the nation.
Truman is highlighting a crucial point over here, saying that the health care system of a nation should be taken into account seriously. It's not something that we can ignore or neglect. Whatever financial constraints that come in the path to achieving a good health care system for a country should be removed out. The citizens should be protected at all costs.
You want a friend in this city? [Washington, DC.] Get a dog!
Perhaps Truman is hinting at the city of Washington DC, which hardly gives human friends to anyone. That's so because life is fast and mostly capitalist. Who can be a friend in this city? That's why he says that getting a dog for yourself is a better option as a dog won't betray you in any way.
Fame is a vapour, popularity is an accident, riches take wings, those who cheer today may curse tomorrow and only one thing endures - character.
Fame is just like a vapour that rises in the air. Popularity is mostly an accident as it's not obvious and supreme. Riches also take wings and may not stay in our hands forever. Then come to those people who are cheering today but will curse tomorrow. Thus, everything is temporary. The only permanent thing in this world is one's character.
