Harry S. Truman Quotes (1884-1972)

“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.”

“In bitter despair, some people have come to believe that wars are inevitable. With tragic fatalism, they insist that wars have always been, of necessity, and of necessity wars always will be. To such defeatism, men and women of good will must not and can not yield. The outlook for humanity is not so hopeless.”

“I believe that we have learned the importance of maintaining military strength as a means of preventing war. We have found that a sound military system is necessary in time of peace if we are to remain at peace. Aggressors in the past, relying on our apparent lack of military force, have unwisely precipitated war. Although they have been led to destruction by their misconception of our strength, we have paid a terrible price for our unpreparedness.”

“No nation on this globe should be more internationally minded than America because it was built by all nations.”

“There are two main differences between Ponzi’s original scam and tThe passage of the Social Security Act in 1935 marked a great advance in our concept of the means by which our citizens, through their Government, can provide against common economic risks. . ."”

“Have fired 500 rounds at the Germans, at my command, been shelled, didn't run away thank the Lord and never lost a man.”

“If they do not now accept our terms they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth.”

“If we let Korea down, the Soviet[s] will keep right on going and swallow up one [place] after another. ....If we were to let Asia go, the Near East would collapse and no telling what would happen in Europe.”

“The Russians are liars; you can't trust them. At Potsdam they agreed to everything and broke their word. It's too bad the second world power is like this, but that's the way it is, and we must keep our strength.”

“The Russians are liars; you can't trust them. At Potsdam they agreed to everything and broke their word. It's too bad the second world power is like this, but that's the way it is, and we must keep our strength.”

“Richard Nixon is a no good, lying bastard. He can lie out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, and if he ever caught himself telling the truth, he'd lie just to keep his hand in.”

“As the chosen leader of the people of the United States I am privileged to pledge full faith to you once again to work with Your Holiness and with every agency of good the world over for an enduring peace. An enduring peace can be built only upon Christian principles. To such a consummation we dedicate all our resources, both spiritual and material, remembering always that except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain who build it.”

“In a war unparalleled in magnitude and horror, millions of Americans gave their country outstanding service; General of The Army George C. Marshall gave it victory.”

“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 who's been dead 10 or 15 years.”

“I wish to acknowledge the many courtesies extended to me on this visit by the Governor General, Viscount Alexander, who paid me the honor of a visit in Washington a few months ago. His career as a soldier and as a statesman eminently qualifies him to follow his illustrious predecessors.”

“This is the first time in my experience, and I was ten years in the Senate, that I ever heard of a Senator trying to discredit his own Government before the world. ... Your telegram is not only not true and an insolent approach to a situation that should have been worked out between man and man but it shows conclusively that you are not even fit to have a hand in the operation of the Government of the United States.”

“The long reign of the great Dom Pedro II put Brazil among the leading democratic nations. Americans of today know him well, for you have engraved his noble features upon a postage stamp which comes to the United States with every mail from Brazil. We recall with pleasure that he was the first monarch to visit the United States, when he came to the exposition at Philadelphia in 1876 which marked the centenary of our independence.”

“For the courtesy of appearing before you, as for other courtesies, I am sure I am largely indebted to my good friend, Prime Minister Mackenzie King. I was particularly happy to be present yesterday when he was honored in the rotunda of this Parliament building. It was a wonderful ceremony, and one which I think he richly deserved. I also appreciate very highly his political advice which he gave me. I have come to value and cherish his friendship and statesmanship. As our two nations have worked together in solving the difficult problems of the postwar period, I have developed greater and greater respect for his wisdom.”

“On this second anniversary of the proclamation of the Republic of Korea, which finds the United States and other members of the United Nations aiding your people in the common purpose of repelling a savage and ruthless Communist invader, I convey to Your Excellency and to the people of Korea the good wishes of the people of the United States. The American people have watched with great satisfaction the impressive achievements of the Republic of Korea since its founding 2 years ago. I know that the aggressor will be repelled and that the people of Korea will achieve the freedom and independence which are their natural right. By a stanch adherence to the principles of right and democracy, victory is assured.”

“Tuesday, August 14, 1945, dawned clear and warm in Washington. Official and unofficial Washington spent a nervous day, listening, watching, waiting. When the marble columned office buildings were emptied, the streets filled rapidly; suburban gardens went unattended; eating places filled beyond their normal capacity. Crowds began an early vigil in Lafayette Square, opposite the White House. News and radio correspondents were summoned at 6:45 to a White House Press Conference. At seven o'clock the President greeted reporters. In his hands was a message from the Swiss Legation; its contents were the Japanese diplomatic words accepting the terms of the Potsdam Declaration. War was over. Peace had come at last.”

“In 1948 the Democrats had little choice but to nominate President Truman, under the banner HE'S GOING TO LOSE. Everybody felt this way: the politicians, the press, the pollsters, the piccolo players, Peter Piper, everybody. The Republicans were so confident that they nominated an individual named Thomas Dewey, whose lone accomplishment was inventing the decimal system. Truman campaigned doggedly around the nation, but his cause appeared to be hopeless. A Dewey victory seemed so inevitable that on election night, the Chicago Tribune printed the famous front-page headline DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN. This was because Dewey had defeated Truman, who immediately threatened to drop an atomic bomb on Chicago, so everybody went ha-ha-ha-ha, just kidding, and wisely elected to have the feisty ex-haberdasher have another term.”

“... at 10:30 a.m. on October 25, 1945, Oppenheimer was ushered into the Oval Office. President Truman was naturally curious to meet the celebrated physicist, whom he knew by reputation to be an eloquent and charismatic figure. ... At one point in their conversation, Truman suddenly asked him to guess when the Russians would develop their own atomic bomb. When Oppie replied that he did not know, Truman confidently said he knew the answer: "Never." For Oppenheimer, such foolishness was proof of Truman's limitations. The "incomprehension it showed just knocked the heart out of him," recalled Willie Higinbotham.”

“Every man who's had to command troops in combat has had to look at the big picture. When Harry Truman made the decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan, he didn't do that assuming he wasn't going to be criticized for it. He was looking at ending the war and saving a million American lives. He provided vision for the nation in spite of the fact that many criticized him then and even more do now. And what about Winston Churchill? He let the Germans bomb the British city of Coventry to protect the fact that the Allies had broken the Germans' code. He allowed the Germans to bomb Coventry because he was looking strategically at ending the war. And he knew if he let it be known that he was reading the Germans' mail, they would immediately change their code. That's thinking strategically versus at the tactical situation. I think everybody who's ever commanded troops has had to look at circumstances strategically. And that amounts to having vision.”

“Wake up, America. Your liberties are being stolen before your very eyes. What Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln fought for, Truman, Acheson, and McGrath are striving desperately to nullify. Wake up, Americans, and dare to think and say and do. Dare to cry: No More War!”

“It's not that Jackson had a "dark side," as his apologists rationalize and which all human beings have, but rather that Jackson was the Dark Knight in the formation of the United States as a colonialist, imperialist democracy, a dynamic formation that continues to constitute the core of US patriotism. The most revered presidents-Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Wilson, both Roosevelts, Truman, Kennedy, Reagan, Clinton, Obama-have each advanced populist imperialism while gradually increasing inclusion of other groups beyond the core of descendants of old settlers into the ruling mythology. All the presidents after Jackson march in his footsteps. Consciously or not, they refer back to him on what is acceptable, how to reconcile democracy and genocide and characterize it as freedom for the people.”

“By the time I prepared to enter college, I was beginning to see myself, as I did for many years afterward, as a Truman Democrat: a liberal Cold Warrior, pro-labor and anti-Communist, like Senators Hubert Humphrey and Henry Jackson and like my Detroit hero Walter Reuther of the United Auto Workers. I admired Truman’s action in sending bombers filled with coal and food instead of weapons to resupply the people in Berlin during the Soviet blockade that began the month of my high school graduation. I supported his response two years later to naked Communist aggression in Korea. And I especially appreciated his decision to keep Korea a limited, conventional war, rejecting General Douglas MacArthur’s recommendations to expand the war to China and to use nuclear weapons. Believing in the policy, I was prepared to go to Korea myself, though I had no eagerness for it. After accepting student deferments until I finished Harvard and then for a year’s graduate fellowship at Cambridge University, I felt an obligation to take the place that others had filled for me. On my return from Cambridge, I volunteered for officer candidate school in the Marine Corps in the fall of 1953; the first opening was the following spring.”

“The President's party arrived in three planes with thirty-five reporters and photographers. As I shook hands with Mr. Truman, he remarked, "I've been a long time meeting you, General." I replied, "I hope it won't be so long next time." But there was never to be a next time.”

“Initially the Truman administration perceived events in Vietnam as a colonial war in which France was trying to reassert its sovereignty. But because France might undermine the containment policy in Europe if the Americans refused to help it in China, the U.S. supported the war effort even though many officials understood that the vast majority of Vietnamese favored Ho and that his movement contained both Communists and non-Communists. After the Korean war erupted, the U.S. commitment to France intensified, since the Indochinese and Korean battlefields seemed to be essential to stopping Chinese communism.”

“One of the themes of the book is don't wait around... [with] steady mobilization. It doesn't work that way. It gives the corporation lobbies too much time to game the system. Look at the health care. It was proposed by Harry Truman in the 1940s, universal health care, and look where we're still at. ...Speed was of the essence.”

“On our return from the Brenner Pass, we learned that President Roosevelt had died. We were all depressed and saddened by the loss of our Commander in Chief. None of us had heard much about Harry S. Truman, our new president and Commander in Chief. As in his choices of Generals George C. Marshall and Dwight D. Eisenhower, FDR picked the best man in choosing Truman as his successor.”