Quotes & anectdotes from
the wise,
the foolish,
the courageous &
the drunk

Harry S. Truman US President

  • Gender: Male
  • Citizenship: United States
  • Born: May 8, 1884
  • Died: Dec 26, 1972

Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States. As the final running mate of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944, Truman succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when Roosevelt died after months of declining health. Under Truman, the Allies successfully concluded World War II; in the aftermath of the conflict, tensions with the Soviet Union increased, marking the start of the Cold War.

Truman was born in Missouri and spent most of his youth on his family's farm. During World War I, he served in combat in France as an artillery officer in his National Guard unit. After the war, he briefly owned a haberdashery and joined the Democratic Party political machine of Tom Pendergast in Kansas City, Missouri. Truman was first elected to public office as a county official and became a U.S. Senator in 1935. He gained national prominence as head of the wartime Truman Committee, which exposed waste, fraud, and corruption in wartime contracts.

While Germany surrendered a few weeks after Truman assumed the Presidency, the war with Japan was expected to last another year or more.

The atom bomb was no 'great decision.' It was merely another powerful weapon in the arsenal of righteousness.

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

America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.

Art is parasitic on life, just as criticism is parasitic on art.

It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.

The only things worth learning are the things you learn after you know it all.

There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know.

Upon books the collective education of the race depends they are the sole instruments of registering, perpetuating and transmitting thought.

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

Study men, not historians.

A leader in the Democratic Party is a boss, in the Republican Party he is a leader.

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

The United Nations is designed to make possible lasting freedom and independence for all its members.

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

Intense feeling too often obscures the truth.

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.

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

The reward of suffering is experience.

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.

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

Any man who has had the job I've had and didn't have a sense of humor wouldn't still be here.

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

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

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

You want a friend in Washington? Get a dog.

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