Top 300 Harry S. Truman Quotes (2024 Update)
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151. “A politician is a man who understands government. A statesman is a politician who’s been dead for 15 years.”

— Harry S. Truman

152. “The Republicans believe in the minimum wage – the more the minimum, the better.”

— Harry S. Truman

153. “I think there is an immense shortage of Christian charity among so-called Christians.”

— Harry S. Truman

154. “I have little patience with people who take the Bill of Rights for granted. The Bill of Rights, contained in the first ten amendments to the Constitution, is every American’s guarantee of freedom.”

— Harry S. Truman

155. “The responsibility of the great states is to serve, and not to dominate, the world.”

— Harry S. Truman

156. “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.”

— Harry S. Truman

157. “Everybody is headed for the same place, and they are headed on the same train, and under the same engineer.”

— Harry S. Truman

158. “People are very much wrought up about the Communist bugaboo.”

— Harry S. Truman

159. “I believe in the brotherhood of man, not merely the brotherhood of white men but the brotherhood of all men before law.”

— Harry S. Truman

160. “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...”

— Harry S. Truman

161. “Everybody has the right to express what he thinks. That, of course, lets the crackpots in. But if you cannot tell a crackpot when you see one, then you ought to be taken in.”

— Harry S. Truman

162. “I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.”

— Harry S. Truman

163. “The absence of war is not peace.”

— Harry S. Truman

164. “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.”

— Harry S. Truman

165. “If we do not abolish war on this earth, then surely one day war will abolish us from the earth.”

— Harry S. Truman

166. “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.”

— Harry S. Truman

167. “The United States should not under any circumstances throw away our gun until we are sure the rest of the world cannot arm against us.”

— Harry S. Truman

168. “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.”

— Harry S. Truman

169. “You want a friend in Washington? Get a dog.”

— Harry S. Truman

170. “It is ignorance that causes most mistakes.”

— Harry S. Truman

171. “Intense feeling too often obscures the truth.”

— Harry S. Truman

172. “We are trying to prevent a third world war.”

— Harry S. Truman

173. “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.”

— Harry S. Truman

174. “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.”

— Harry S. Truman

175. “We can never tell what is in store for us.”

— Harry S. Truman

176. “You know of our sympathetic interest in this country in Iran’s desire to control its natural resources. From this point of view we were happy to see that the British Government has on its part accepted the principle of nationalization.”

— Harry S. Truman

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

— Harry S. Truman

178. “The dictators of the world say that if you tell a lie often enough, why, people will believe it. Well, if you tell the truth often enough, they’ll believe it and go along with you.”

— Harry S. Truman

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

— Harry S. Truman

180. “How far would Moses have gone if he had taken a poll in Egypt?”

— Harry S. Truman

181. “You members of this Conference are to be the architects of the better world. In your hands rests our future.”

— Harry S. Truman

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

— Harry S. Truman

183. “I don’t feel qualified to be president either, but I’ve got the job.”

— Harry S. Truman

184. “We shall never be able to remove suspicion and fear as potential causes of war until communication is permitted to flow, free and open, across international boundaries.”

— Harry S. Truman

185. “The President hears a hundred voices telling him that he is the greatest man in the world. He must listen carefully indeed to hear the one voice that tells him his is not.”

— Harry S. Truman

186. “Why, this fellow doesn’t know any more about politics than a pig knows about Sunday.”

— Harry S. Truman

187. “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!”

— Harry S. Truman

188. “France is France and a grand place for Frenchman.”

— Harry S. Truman

189. “Andrew Johnson wasn’t too bad, but he was overwhelmed by a hostile Congress.”

— Harry S. Truman

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

— Harry S. Truman

191. “Whenever you put a man on the Supreme Court he ceases to be your friend.”

— Harry S. Truman

192. “There are always a lot of people so afraid of rocking the boat that they stop rowing. We can never get ahead that way.”

— Harry S. Truman

193. “It is understanding that gives us an ability to have peace.”

— Harry S. Truman

194. “When the Liberals said they were going to create a million new jobs, I didn’t think they were all going to be tax collectors. If you can’t convince them, confuse them.”

— Harry S. Truman

195. “This is a Christian nation.”

— Harry S. Truman

196. “The most peaceful thing in the world is plowing a field. Chances are you’ll do your best thinking that way. And that’s why I’ve always thought and said, farmers are the smartest people in the world, they don’t go for high hats and they can spot a phony a mile off.”

— Harry S. Truman

197. “Poor Ike. He’ll say do this and do that and nothing at all will happen.”

— Harry S. Truman

198. “There is a lure in power. It can get into a man’s blood just as gambling and lust for money have been known to do.”

— Harry S. Truman

199. “Dictatorship, by whatever name, is founded on the doctrine that the individual amounts to nothing; that the State is the only one that counts; and that men and women and children were put on earth solely for the purpose of serving the state.”

— Harry S. Truman

200. “I got very well acquainted with Joe Stalin, and I like old Joe! He is a decent fellow. But Joe is a prisoner of the Politburo.”

— Harry S. Truman