Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Harry S. Truman (American Head of State)

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

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
Topics: Management

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

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 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

The buck stops here.
Harry S. Truman
Topics: Money

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

Intense feeling too often obscures the truth.
Harry S. Truman
Topics: Truth

If you can’t convince ’em, confuse ’em.
Harry S. Truman

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.
Harry S. Truman
Topics: Discipline, Live, Victory, Great

The only thing new in the world is the history you don’t know.
Harry S. Truman
Topics: One liners, History

There has been a lot of talk lately about the burdens of the Presidency. Decisions that the President has to make often affect the lives of tens of millions of people around the world, but that does not mean that they should take longer to make. Some men can make decisions and some cannot. Some men fret and delay under criticism. I used to have a saying that applies here, and I note that some people have picked it up, If you cant stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
Harry S. Truman

All my life, whenever it comes time to make a decision, I make it and forget about it.
Harry S. Truman
Topics: Decision, Choice

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

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

The only thing new in this world is the history that you don’t know
Harry S. Truman
Topics: History, One liners

Politics is a fascinating game, because politics is government. It is the art of government.
Harry S. Truman

Whenever I make a bum decision, I just go out and make another.
Harry S. Truman
Topics: Decide, Courage, Decisions

Actions are the seed of fate deeds grow into destiny.
Harry S. Truman
Topics: Action, Fate

The “C” students run the world.
Harry S. Truman
Topics: Perfection

As you get older, you get tired of doing the same things over and over again, so you think Christmas has changed. It hasn’t. It’s you who has changed.
Harry S. Truman
Topics: Holidays

If that’s art, I’m a Hottentot!
Harry S. Truman
Topics: Arts, Art, Artists

A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities; an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties.
Harry S. Truman
Topics: Pessimism, Optimism, Opportunities

It’s a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it’s a depression when you lose your own.
Harry S. Truman
Topics: Economy, Unemployment, Depression, Jobs

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

Experience has shown how deeply the seeds of war are planted by economic rivalry and social injustice.
Harry S. Truman
Topics: Experience

All the president is is a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing, and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway.
Harry S. Truman
Topics: Presidency

Whenever you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship.
Harry S. Truman
Topics: Government

It isn’t important who is ahead at one time or another, in either an election or a horse race.
It’s the horse that comes in first at the finish that counts
Harry S. Truman
Topics: Horses

Once a decision was made I did not worry about it afterward.
Harry S. Truman
Topics: Decisions

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: Secrets of Success, Enthusiasm, Role models, Action

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