Harry Truman quotes

“The White House is the finest prison in the world.”

— Harry Truman

“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 Truman

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

— Harry Truman

“The President is always abused. If he isn't, he isn't doing anything.”

— Harry Truman

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

— Harry Truman

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

— Harry Truman

“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!”

— Harry Truman

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

— Harry Truman

“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.”

— Harry Truman

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

— Harry Truman

“If I hadn't been President of the United States, I probably would have ended up a piano player in a bawdy house.”

— Harry Truman

“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.”

— Harry Truman

“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.”

— Harry Truman

“Intense feeling too often obscures the truth.”

— Harry Truman

“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.”

— Harry Truman

“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.”

— Harry Truman

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

— Harry Truman

“The buck stops here!”

— Harry Truman

“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.”

— Harry Truman

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

— Harry Truman