Quotes from Harry S. Truman

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

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.

If we do not want to die together in war, we must learn to live together in peace.

On tight money: It reflects a reversion to the old idea that the tree can be fertilized at the top instead of at the bottom - the old trickle-down theory.

An honest public servant can't become rich in politics. He can only attain greatness and satisfaction by service.

(The AMA is) "just another mean trust."

We must have strong minds, ready to accept facts as they are.

I don't give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it is hell.

The best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.

The difficulty with businessmen entering politics, after they've had a successful business career, is that they want to start at the top.

A leader is the man who has the ability to get other people to do what they don't want to do, and like it.

The seeds of totalitarian regimes are nurtured by misery and want.

The President spends most of his time kissing people on the cheek in order to get them to do what they ought to do without getting kissed.

'Sartor Resartus' is simply unreadable, and for me that always sort of spoils a book.

How far would Moses have gone if he had taken a poll in Egypt?

Wherever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.

I don't want this office, this responsibility, any longer, even if you want me. Find the strongest and most able and God bless you. Good-bye.

Leadership is getting people to do things that they don't want to do.

There is some risk involved in action, there always is. But there is far more risk in failure to act.

Ignorance and its hand-maidens, prejudice, intolerance, suspicion of our fellowman, breed dictators and breed wars.

If we do not abolish war on this earth, then surely one day war will abolish us from the earth.

Sixteen hours ago an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima. . . . The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East.

We must face the fact that peace must be built on power, as well as upon good will and good deeds.

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.