Harry S. Truman (1884–1972) was an American Democratic-party political leader who served as the 33rd president 1945–53. He oversaw the end of World War II, including the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the new challenges of the Cold War.
Born in Lamar, Missouri, Truman served in the U.S. Army during World War I and served as a U.S. senator from 1934 until 1945. Franklin D. Roosevelt selected Truman as vice president in 1944. In April 1945, with the imminent end of World War II, he became president when Roosevelt died.
After World War II, Truman led America’s evolution from wartime to peacetime economy. He introduced the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe, sanctioned the Berlin airlift, established the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO,) and authorized U.S. military participation in the Korean War.
Truman retired to private life in 1952 and published two volumes of memoirs—Year of Decisions (1955) and Years of Trial and Hope (1956.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Harry S. Truman
If you can’t convince ’em, confuse ’em.
—Harry S. Truman
I studied the lives of great men and famous women; and I found that the men and women who got to the top were those who did the jobs they had in hand, with everything they had of energy and enthusiasm and hard work.
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: Action, Enthusiasm, Role models, Secrets of Success
Carry the battle to them. Don’t let them bring it to you. Put them on the defensive and don’t ever apologize for anything
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: Battle
My favorite animal is the mule. He has a lot more horse sense than a horse. He knows when to stop eating. And he knows when to stop working.
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: Animals
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 the country have.
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: Presidency
I learned that a great leader is a man who has the ability to get other people to do what they don’t want to do and like it.
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: Inspiration, Leaders, Leadership
I always considered statesmen to be more expendable than soldiers.
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: Politicians, Soldiers, Politics
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.
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: Peace, Understanding
Some of the Presidents were great and some of them weren’t. I can say that, because I wasn’t one of the great Presidents, but I had a good time trying to be one, I can tell you that.
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: Presidency
Whenever I make a bum decision, I just go out and make another.
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: Courage, Decisions, Decide
I would rather have peace in the world than be President.
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: Peace
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
Topics: Communication
The only thing new in the world is the history you don’t know.
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: History, One liners
Whenever the press quits abusing me I know Im in the wrong pew. I don’t mind it because when they throw bricks at meIm a pretty good shot myself and I usually throw em back at em.
—Harry S. Truman
All through history it’s the nations that have given most to generals and the least to the people that have been the first to fall
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: Nation
Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: Tyranny
We must build a new world, a far better world—one in which the eternal dignity of man is respected.
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: Respect, Discovery
Politics is a fascinating game, because politics is government. It is the art of government.
—Harry S. Truman
Shortly after I was elected, in Nineteen Hundred and Forty-eight, I made up my mind that I would not seek another term. I have seen a great many men in public life, and one of their besetting sins is to stay in office too long. Nowadays, in such organizations as the Army and the civil service and industry, there is compulsory retirement, but no such regulations prevail in politics. I decided that I would not be guilty of this common failing, and that I should make way for younger menand the Constitutional Amendment Number twenty-two, the two-term amendment, does not apply to me. The people responsible for the 22nd amendment thought I was not worth considering and that Id be beaten in 1948 so I was exempted.
—Harry S. Truman
On May 14 I was informed that the Provisional Government of Israel was planning to proclaim a Jewish state at midnight that day, Palestine time, which was when the British mandate came to an end. I decided to move at once and give American recognition to the new nation. I instructed a member of my staff to communicate my decision to the State Department and prepare it for transmission to Ambassador Austin at the United Nations in New York. About thirty minutes later, exactly eleven minutes after Israel had been proclaimed a state, Charlie Ross, my press secretary, handed the press the announcement of the de facto recognition by the United States of the provisional government of Israel.
—Harry S. Truman
Give me a one-handed economist! All my economics say, “On the one hand? on the other.”
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: Economics
Once a decision was made I did not worry about it afterward.
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: Decisions
I always remember an epitaph which is in the cemetery at Tombstone, Arizona. It says: “Here lies Jack Williams. He done his damnedest.” I think that is the greatest epitaph a man can have.
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: Excellence
It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.
—Harry S. Truman
Actions are the seed of fate deeds grow into destiny.
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: Fate, Action
Being too good is apt to be uninteresting.
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: Greatness, Greatness & Great Things
Whenever you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship.
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: Government
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
Topics: Friendship
You can always amend a big plan, but you can never expand a little one. I don’t believe in little plans. I believe in plans big enough to meet a situation which we can’t possibly foresee now.
—Harry S. Truman
The only thing new in this world is the history that you don’t know
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: One liners, History
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.
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: Americans
People are very much wrought up about the Communist bugaboo.
—Harry S. Truman
If that’s art, I’m a Hottentot!
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: Art, Arts, Artists
The “C” students run the world.
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: Perfection
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
I do not believe there is a problem in this country or the world today which could not be settled if approached through the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount.
—Harry S. Truman
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. If the second and third generations could profit by the experience of the first generation, we would not be having some of the troubles we have today.
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: Generations
When the decision is up before you—and on my desk I have a motto which says “The buck stops here”—the decision has to be made.
—Harry S. Truman
The battle for conservation cannot be limited to the winning of new conquests. Like liberty itself, conservation must be fought for unceasingly to protect earlier victories. There are always plenty of hogs who are trying to get natural resources for their own personal benefit! Public lands and parks, our forests and our mineral reserves, are subject to many destructive influences. We have to remain constantly vigilant to prevent raids by those who would selfishly exploit our common heritage for their private gain. Such raids on our natural resources are not examples of enterprise and initiative. They are attempts to take from all the people for the benefit of a few.
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: Wilderness
I never gave anybody hell! I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: Truth
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