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
The only thing new in the world is the history you don’t know.
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: History, One liners
Intense feeling too often obscures the truth.
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: Truth
All my life, whenever it comes time to make a decision, I make it and forget about it.
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: Choice, Decision
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
A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities; an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties.
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: Optimism, Opportunities, Pessimism
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
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
I come to the office each morning and stay for long hours doing what has to be done to the best of my ability. And when you’ve done the best you can, you can’t do any better. So when I go to sleep I turn everything over to the Lord and forget it.
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: Happiness, Contentment
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
Actions are the seed of fate deeds grow into destiny.
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: Fate, Action
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 “C” students run the world.
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: Perfection
Whenever you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship.
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: Government
I said that an expert was a fella who was afraid to learn anything new because then he wouldn’t be an expert anymore.
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: Knowledge
Any man who has had the job I’ve had and didn’t have a sense of humor wouldn’t still be here.
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: Humor
You can never get all the facts from just one newspaper, and unless you have all the facts, you cannot make proper judgements about what is going on.
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: Media
I never gave anybody hell! I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: Truth
The buck stops here.
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: Money
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
Whenever I make a bum decision, I just go out and make another.
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: Courage, Decisions, Decide
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: Leaders, Leadership, Inspiration
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
Topics: Presidency
When a leader is in the Democratic Party he is a boss, and when he is in the Republican Party he is a leader.
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: Politics
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
Politics is a fascinating game, because politics is government. It is the art of government.
—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
Being too good is apt to be uninteresting.
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: Greatness, Greatness & Great Things
I’m proud that I’m a politician. A politician is a man who understands government, and it takes a politician to run a government. A statesman is a politician whose been dead 10 or 15 years.
—Harry S. Truman
Topics: Politicians, Politics
It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.
—Harry S. Truman
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