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
Study men, not historians.
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.
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.
The buck stops here!
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.
Intense feeling too often obscures the truth.
Being too good is apt to be uninteresting.
Always be sincere, even if you don't mean it.
I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.
This administration is going to be cussed and discussed for years to come.
The best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.
Whenever a fellow tells me he's bipartisan, I know he's going to vote against me.
Nixon is one of the few in the history of this country to run for high office talking out of both sides of his mouth at the same time and lying out of both sides.
America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.
The White House is the finest prison in the world.
Upon books the collective education of the race depends; they are the sole instruments of registering, perpetuating and transmitting thought.
Washington is a very easy city for you to forget where you came from and why you got there in the first place.
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.
I had faith in Israel before it was established, I have in it now. I believe it has a glorious future before it - not just another sovereign nation, but as an embodiment of the great ideals of our civilization.
Actions are the seed of fate deeds grow into destiny.
If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
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.
The human animal cannot be trusted for anything good except en masse. The combined thought and action of the whole people of any race, creed or nationality, will always point in the right direction.
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.
You want a friend in Washington? Get a dog.
It sure is hell to be president.
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.
I have no desire to crow over anybody or to see anybody eating crow, figuratively or otherwise. We should all get together and make a country in which everybody can eat turkey whenever he pleases.
The President is always abused. If he isn't, he isn't doing anything.
A President needs political understanding to run the government, but he may be elected without it.
Experience has shown how deeply the seeds of war are planted by economic rivalry and social injustice.
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!
Art is parasitic on life, just as criticism is parasitic on art.
There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know.
The United Nations is designed to make possible lasting freedom and independence for all its members.
A President cannot always be popular.
I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.
A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties.
I would rather have peace in the world than be President.
Well, I wouldn't say that I was in the great class, but I had a great time while I was trying to be great.
All my life, whenever it comes time to make a decision, I make it and forget about it.
Most of the problems a President has to face have their roots in the past.
If I hadn't been President of the United States, I probably would have ended up a piano player in a bawdy house.
A politician is a man who understands government. A statesman is a politician who's been dead for 15 years.
A bureaucrat is a Democrat who holds some office that a Republican wants.
It's plain hokum. If you can't convince 'em, confuse 'em. It's an old political trick. But this time it won't work.
It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours.
A leader in the Democratic Party is a boss, in the Republican Party he is a leader.
When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship.
