Quotes from Harry Truman

When even one American - who has done nothing wrong - is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth, then all Americans are in peril.

If you can't dance then you are a loser.

Human life is something that comes to us from beyond this world, and the purpose of our society is to cherish it and to enable the individual to attain the highest achievement of which he is capable

Mama and Papa are more to blame (for delinquency) than the kids; parents should stay home and raise their children and spend less time in taverns.

Experience has shown how deeply the seeds of war are planted by economic rivalry and social injustice.

He was a windbag. He made a great many orations, and I imagine he did a very good job, but he was still a windbag

The responsibility of the great states is to serve and not to dominate the world.

I hope for some sort of peace—but I fear that machines are ahead of morals by some centuries and when morals catch up there'll be no reason for any of it.

The dictators of the world say that if you tell a lie often enough, why, people will believe it. Well, if you tell the truth often enough, they'll believe it and go along with you.

I had faith in Israel before it was established; I have faith in it now.

My definition of a leader in a free country is a man who can persuade people to do what they don't want to do, or do what they're too lazy to do, and like it.

Poor Ike. He'll say do this and do that and nothing at all will happen.

I am] just a common everyday man whose instincts are to be ornery, who's anxious to be right.

You know when people can get excited over the ordinary things in life, they live

All Fascism did not die with Mussolini. Hitler is finished--but the seeds spread by his disordered mind have firm root in too many fanatical brains. It is easier to remove tyrants and destroy concentration camps than it is to kill the ideas which gave them birth and strength.

Always be sincere, even if you don't mean it.

I'll come back to George Washington just long enough to say goodbye to him. He was a great man and a good man, and when his work was over as our great first president, he went back home to Virginia for his long-earned rest. Just three years later, on December 14, 1799, at the age of sixty-seven, he went to his final rest. As

Within the first few months I discovered that being President is like riding a tiger. A man has to keep on riding or be swallowed.

An expert is someone who doesn't want to learn anything new, because then he would not be an expert

Nearly every crisis seems to be the worst one, but after it's over, it isn't so bad.

The next generation never learns anything from the previous one until it's brought home with a hammer. I've wondered why the next generation can't profit from the generation before but they never do until they get knocked in the head by experience.

The nature of the congressional investigating committee has suffered violence at the hands of some who have not understood or appreciated the scope and function of such a committee. Too often, in recent times, the committees have been used for publicity rather than for the original purposes intended.

I hadn't ought to say this but he's [Billy Graham] one of those counterfeits I was telling you about. He claims he's a friend of all the Presidents, but he was never a friend of mine when I was President. I just don't go for people like that. All he's interested in is getting his name in the paper.