Quotes from Harry S. Truman

Secrecy and a free, democratic government don't mix.

I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.

My father was not a failure. After all, he was the father of a president of the United States.

The buck stops here.

A President needs political understanding to run the government, but he may be elected without it.

I never gave anybody hell! I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.

Once a decision was made, I did not worry about it afterward.

When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship.

I would rather have peace in the world than be President.

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.

All my life, whenever it comes time to make a decision, I make it and forget about it.

The release of atomic energy constitutes a new force too revolutionary to consider in the framework of old ideas.

A politician is a man who understands government. A statesman is a politician who's been dead for 15 years.

Intense feeling too often obscures the truth.

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.

If there is one basic element in our Constitution, it is civilian control of the military.

The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know.

To me, party platforms are contracts with the people.

Means of destruction hitherto unknown, against which there can be no adequate military defense, and in the employment of which no single nation can in fact have a monopoly.

When they told me yesterday what had happened [the death of F. D. Roosevelt], I felt like the moon, the stars and all the planets had fallen on me.

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.

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

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.

Study men, not historians.