Top 300 Harry S. Truman Quotes (2025 Update)
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201. “Poor Ike. He’ll say do this and do that and nothing at all will happen.”

— Harry S. Truman

202. “This is a Christian nation.”

— Harry S. Truman

203. “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

204. “We must face the fact that peace must be built on power, as well as upon good will and good deeds.”

— Harry S. Truman

205. “For reasons of national security and out of consideration for some people still alive I have omitted certain material. Some of this material cannot be made available for many years, perhaps for many generations.”

— Harry S. Truman

206. “No one who has not had the responsibility can really understand what it is like to be President, not even his closest aides or members of his immediate family. There is no end to the chain of responsibility that binds him, and he is never allowed to forget that he is President.”

— Harry S. Truman

207. “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.”

— Harry S. Truman

208. “A leader has to lead otherwise he has no business in politics.”

— Harry S. Truman

209. “I’ve had a few setbacks in my life, but I never gave up.”

— Harry S. Truman

210. “I like riding a bicycle built for two – by myself.”

— Harry S. Truman

211. “Our efforts have brought new hope to all mankind. We have beaten back despair and defeatism. We have saved a number of countries from losing their liberty. Hundreds of millions of people all over the world now agree with us, that we need not have war-that we can have peace.”

— Harry S. Truman

212. “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.”

— Harry S. Truman

213. “The stress stops here.”

— Harry S. Truman

214. “John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were political enemies, but they became fast friends. And when they passed away on the same day, the last words of one of them was, The country is safe. Jefferson still lives. And the last words of the other was, John Adams will see that things go forward.”

— Harry S. Truman

215. “The America to which these Swedish settlers came was a land that needed the hardy qualities they brought. It was not a land that was particularly softhearted towards newcomers, but everyone believed that each should have a fair chance regardless of his origin.”

— Harry S. Truman

216. “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.”

— Harry S. Truman

217. “Of course, there are dangers in religious freedom and freedom of opinion. But to deny these rights is worse than dangerous, it is absolutely fatal to liberty.”

— Harry S. Truman

218. “Whenever the press quits abusing me, I know I’m in the wrong pew.”

— Harry S. Truman

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

— Harry S. Truman

220. “Canada is a broad land – broad in mind, broad in spirit, and broad in physical expanse.”

— Harry S. Truman

221. “He “wasn’t used to being criticized, and he never did get it through his head that’s what politics is all about. He was used to getting his ass kissed.””

— Harry S. Truman

222. “Washington is a very easy city for you to forget where you came from and why you got there in the first place.”

— Harry S. Truman

223. “It is through generous giving, that we affirm before the world, our nation’s faith in the inalienable right of every man, to a life of freedom, justice and security.”

— Harry S. Truman

224. “If you think somebody is telling a big lie about you, the only way to answer is with the whole truth.”

— Harry S. Truman

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

— Harry S. Truman

226. “I have had enough experience in all my years, and have read enough of the past, to know that advice to grandchildren is usually wasted.”

— Harry S. Truman

227. “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 it’s citizens deserves the help of all the nation.”

— Harry S. Truman

228. “I had faith in Israel before it was established, I have faith in it now.”

— Harry S. Truman

229. “This administration is going to be cussed and discussed for years to come.”

— Harry S. Truman

230. “Some of my best friends never agree with me politically.”

— Harry S. Truman

231. “The United States is not so strong, the final triumph of the democratic ideal is not so inevitable that we can ignore what the world thinks of us or our record.”

— Harry S. Truman

232. “I do not believe in shooting anything that cannot shoot back.”

— Harry S. Truman

233. “Yours is not the task of making your way in the world, but the task of remaking the world which you will find before you.”

— Harry S. Truman

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

— Harry S. Truman

235. “When contemplating General Eisenhower winning the Presidential election, Truman said, Hell sit here, and hell say, Do this! Do that! And nothing will happen. Poor Ikeit wont be a bit like the Army. Hell find it very frustrating.”

— Harry S. Truman

236. “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.”

— Harry S. Truman

237. “It sure is hell to be president.”

— Harry S. Truman

238. “I wonder how far Moses would have gone if he’d taken a poll in Egypt?”

— Harry S. Truman

239. “I always considered statesmen to be more expendable than soldiers.”

— Harry S. Truman

240. “A man who is influenced by the polls or is afraid to make decisions which make him unpopular is not a man to represent the welfare of the country.”

— Harry S. Truman

241. “The Republican Party either corrupts its liberals or it expels them.”

— Harry S. Truman

242. “Here we now have the freedom of all religions, and I hope that never again will we have a repetition of religious bigotry, as we have had in certain periods of our own history. There is no room for that kind of foolishness here.”

— Harry S. Truman

243. “Human life is something that comes to us from beyond this world, and the purpose of our society is to cherish it and to enable the individual to attain the highest achievement of which he is capable.”

— Harry S. Truman

244. “Whenever a man does the best he can, then that is all he can do.”

— Harry S. Truman

245. “Give me a one-handed Economist. All my economists say ‘on hand... ’, then ’but on the other...”

— Harry S. Truman

246. “I don’t believe in anti-anything. A man has to have a program; you have to be for something. Otherwise, you will never get anywhere.”

— Harry S. Truman

247. “When a High Explosive shell bursts in fifteen feet and does you no damage, you can bet your sweet life you bear a charmed life and no mistake.”

— Harry S. Truman

248. “He wanted to know what assurance we could give the American people that we aren’t getting the tar licked out of us by the North Korean army. It has never happened to us. It won’t happen this time.”

— Harry S. Truman

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

— Harry S. Truman

250. “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.”

— Harry S. Truman