1. Quotes
  2. Authors
  3. Harry Truman

Harry Truman Quotes
page 2

Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States , assuming that office upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt during the waning months of World War II. He is known for approving the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Marshall Plan to rebuild the economy of Western Europe, the Cold War against Soviet and Chinese communism by establishing the Truman Doctrine and NATO, and for intervening in the Korean War. In domestic affairs, he was a moderate Democrat whose liberal proposals were a continuation of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, but the conservative-dominated Congress blocked most of them. He used the veto power 180 times, more than any president since then, and saw 12 overridden by Congress; only Grover Cleveland and Franklin D. Roosevelt used the veto so often, and only Gerald Ford and Andrew Johnson saw so many veto overrides. He is the only world leader to have ever used nuclear weapons in war, desegregated the U.S. Armed Forces, supported a newly independent Israel, and was a founder of the United Nations.

Truman was born in Lamar, Missouri, and spent most of his youth on his family's 600-acre farm near Independence. In the last months of World War I, he served in combat in France as an artillery officer with his National Guard unit. After the war, he briefly owned a haberdashery in Kansas City, Missouri, and joined the Democratic Party and the political machine of Tom Pendergast. Truman was first elected to public office as a county official in 1922, and then as a U.S. Senator in 1934. He gained national prominence as chairman of the Truman Committee, formed in March 1941, which aimed to find and correct problems such as waste and inefficiency in Federal Government wartime contracts.

After serving as a United States Senator from Missouri and briefly as Vice President , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Germany surrendered on Truman's 61st birthday, just a few weeks after he assumed the presidency, but the war with Imperial Japan raged on and was expected to last at least another year. Truman approved the use of atomic bombs to end the fighting and to spare the American and Japanese lives that would inevitably be lost in the planned invasion of Japan and Japanese-held islands in the Pacific. Although this decision and the numerous issues that arose as a result of it remain the subject of debate to this day, most historians agree that it was one of the principal factors that forced Japan's unconditional surrender.

Truman presided over an unexpected surge in economic prosperity as America sought readjustment after long years of depression and war. His presidency was a turning point in foreign affairs, as the United States engaged in an internationalist foreign policy and renounced isolationism. Truman helped found the United Nations in 1945, issued the Truman Doctrine in 1947 to contain Communism, and got the $13 billion Marshall Plan enacted to rebuild Western Europe. His political coalition was based on the white South, labor unions, farmers, ethnic groups, and traditional Democrats across the North. Truman was able to rally these groups of supporters during the 1948 presidential election and win a surprise victory that secured a presidential term in his own right.

The Soviet Union, then led by Joseph Stalin, became an enemy in the Cold War. Truman oversaw the Berlin Airlift of 1948 and the creation of NATO in 1949 but was unable to stop Communists from taking over China, and survived unharmed from an assassination attempt in 1950. When communist North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950, he sent U.S. troops and gained UN approval for the Korean War. After initial successes in Korea, however, the UN forces were thrown back by Chinese intervention, and the conflict was stalemated throughout the final years of Truman's presidency. On domestic issues, bills endorsed by Truman often faced opposition from a conservative Congress dominated by the Southern legislators, but his administration was able to successfully guide the American economy through the post-war economic challenges. Truman maintained that civil rights were a moral priority, and in 1948 submitted the first comprehensive civil rights legislation and issued Executive Orders to start racial integration in the military and federal agencies. Allegations were raised of corruption in the Truman administration, linked to certain cabinet members and senior White House staff; this became a central campaign issue in the 1952 presidential election, and helped account for Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower's electoral victory. Scholars, starting in 1962, ranked Truman's presidency as "near great"; since then he has been ranked between 5th and 9th in historical rankings of US presidents.

✵ 8. May 1884 – 26. December 1972   •   Other names Harry Spencer Truman
Harry Truman photo
Harry Truman: 119   quotes 5   likes

Harry Truman Quotes

“It isn't important who is ahead at one time or another in either an election or horse race. It's the horse that comes in first at the finish line that counts.”

Harry Truman

As quoted in Bush's Brain : How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential (2003) by Wayne Slater and James Moore, p. 173

Time , Horse

“And as I say to you, whenever you put a man on the Supreme Court, he ceases to be your friend, you can be sure of that.”

Harry Truman

Reported in Truman Speaks (1960), p. 59.

“If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.”

Harry Truman

This saying was popularized by Truman after he publicly used it in 1952. It was soon credited to his aide Harry H. Vaughan in TIME (28 April 1952) but apparently originated with a Missouri colleague of Truman, Eugene "Buck" Purcell, according to The Quote Verifier: Who Said What, Where, And When (2006) by Ralph Keyes. Truman himself later made reference to his popularization of the remark in his book Mr. Citizen (1960), p. 229:
: There has been a lot of talk lately about the burdens of the Presidency. Decisions that the President has to make often affect the lives of tens of millions of people around the world, but that does not mean that they should take longer to make. Some men can make decisions and some cannot. Some men fret and delay under criticism. I used to have a saying that applies here, and I note that some people have picked it up, "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen."
Misattributed

“I do not believe in shooting anything that cannot shoot back.”

Harry Truman

Mr. Citizen, Harry Truman (1960)

“The Committee shall continue to exist until such time as the President shall terminate its existence by Executive order.”

Harry Truman

Executive Order 9981 (1948)

Time

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

Harry Truman

Attributed without citation in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (1992) by Angela Partington, disputed in The Quote Verifier : Who Said What, Where, and When (2006) by Ralph Keyes, p. 224, as something Truman is not known to have said, nor was likely to have said.
Disputed

Sincerity

“The Committee is authorized on behalf of the President to examine into the rules, procedures and practices of the Armed Services in order to determine in what respect such rules, procedures and practices may be altered or improved with a view to carrying out the policy of this order. The Committee shall confer and advise the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of the Army, the Secretary of the Navy, and the Secretary of the Air Force, and shall make such recommendations to the President and to said Secretaries as in the judgment of the Committee will effectuate the policy hereof.”

Harry Truman

Executive Order 9981 (1948)

“They couldn't include me in it because I was the President, and I can be elected as often as I want to be. I'm going to run again when I'm ninety. I've announced that a time or two, and you know, some damn fool looked the situation over and said, "When you're ninety, it's an off year," so I can't even run then. I didn't know I was going to stir up all that trouble...”

Harry Truman

On the 22nd Amendment limiting a president to two terms, in a lecture at Columbia University (28 April 1959)

Fools , Time

“There shall be created in the National Military Establishment an advisory committee to be known as the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, which shall be composed of seven members to be designated by the President.”

Harry Truman

Executive Order 9981 (1948)

“He’s 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.”

Harry Truman

On Richard Nixon, as quoted Plain Speaking : An Oral Biography of Harry S Truman (1974) by Merle Miller, p. 179

History , Lying , Time , Country

“All of you, I am sure, have heard many cries about Government interference with business and about "creeping socialism." I should like to remind the gentlemen who make these complaints that if events had been allowed to continue as they were going prior to March 4, 1933, most of them would have no businesses left for the Government or for anyone else to interfere with — and almost surely we would have socialism in this country, real socialism.”

Harry Truman

Harry Truman in Detroit (14 May 1950), as recorded in Good Old Harry

Business , Country

“I don't believe in anti-anything. A man has to have a program; you have to be for something, otherwise you will never get anywhere.”

Harry Truman

Lecture at Columbia University (28 April 1959)

“No man can get rich in politics unless he's a crook.”

Harry Truman

Variant: Similarly on pg. 136: "About this getting rich in politics. Like I said, you just can't do it unless you're a crook." And earlier: "An honest public servant can't become rich in politics." - Truman's diary, 24 April 1954.
Source: Harry S Truman, quoted in Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S Truman by Merle Miller, 1973-1974 SBN 425-02664-7 LOC 73-87198, Berkeley Medallion Edition, October, 1974, Chapter 10. "The Only Defeat − and Then Victory", pg. 134.

“It is an atomic bomb. It is a harnessing of the basic power of the universe. The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East.
Before 1939, it was the accepted belief of scientists that it was theoretically possible to release atomic energy. But no one knew any practical method of doing it. By 1942, however, we knew that the Germans were working feverishly to find a way to add atomic energy to the other engines of war with which they hoped to enslave the world. But they failed. We may be grateful to Providence that the Germans got the V-1's and V-2's late and in limited quantities and even more grateful that they did not get the atomic bomb at all.”

Harry Truman

Announcing the Bombing of Hiroshima (1945)

War , World , Hope , Way

“No government is perfect. One of the chief virtues of a democracy, however, is that its defects are always visible and under democratic processes can be pointed out and corrected.”

Harry Truman

Speech to a joint session of the US Congress (12 March 1947), outlining what became known as The Truman Doctrine

Democracy , Perfection

“Boys, if you ever pray, pray for me now. I don't know whether you fellows ever had a load of hay fall on you, but when they told me yesterday what had happened, I felt like the moon, the stars and all the planets had fallen on me. I've got the most terribly responsible job a man ever had.”

Harry Truman

Comment to reporters on having become president the day before, after the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, (13 April 1945) as quoted in Conflict and Crisis : The Presidency of Harry S. Truman, 1945-1948 by Robert J. Donovan, p. 17; also quoted in "Thoughts Of A President, 1945" at Eyewitness to History http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/tru.htm, and TIME magazine (12 April1968) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,838136-9,00.html

Star , Boy

“I believe that we have learned the importance of maintaining military strength as a means of preventing war. We have found that a sound military system is necessary in time of peace if we are to remain at peace. Aggressors in the past, relying on our apparent lack of military force, have unwisely precipitated war. Although they have been led to destruction by their misconception of our strength, we have paid a terrible price for our unpreparedness.”

Harry Truman

Special Message to the Congress on the Threat to the Freedom of Europe (1948)

War , Peace , Learning , Time

“Tell him to go to hell; I'm for Jimmy Byrnes.”

Harry Truman

Upon hearing that Franklin D. Roosevelt wanted him to be his vice presidential running mate (21 July 1944), as quoted in Choosing Truman : The Democratic Convention of 1944 (1994); also quoted in "Harry S. Truman : America's last great leader?" in USA Today magazine (January 1995) by the Society for the Advancement of Education http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1272/is_n2596_v123/ai_16399945

Hell

“My forebears were Confederates… but my very stomach turned over when I had learned that Negro soldiers, just back from overseas, were being dumped out of Army trucks in Mississippi and beaten.”

Harry Truman

As quoted in Harry S. Truman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_S._Truman#CITEREFTruman1973 (1973), by Margaret Truman, New York: William Morrow, p. 429

Learning

“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

As quoted in Plain Speaking : An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman (1974) by Merle Miller, p. 228

“It is my deep conviction that we have reached a turning point in our country’s efforts to guarantee freedom and equality to all our citizens. Recent events in the United States and abroad have made us realize that it is more important today than ever before to insure that all Americans enjoy these rights. When I say all Americans, I mean all Americans.”

Harry Truman

Speech to the NAACP http://www.virginia.edu/uvanewsmakers/newsmakers/gardner.html (29 June 1947).

Effort , Freedom , Country

“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

Third Radner Lecture, Columbia University, New York City (29 April 1959), as published in Truman Speaks : Lectures And Discussions Held At Columbia University On April 27, 28, And 29, 1959 (1960), p. 111

Thinking , Time , Housing

“No nation on this globe should be more internationally minded than America because it was built by all nations.”

Harry Truman

Harry Truman at Chicago, 17 March 1945, as recorded in Good Old Harry

“My favorite animal is the mule. He has more sense than a horse. He knows when to stop eating — and when to stop working.”

Harry Truman

Mr. Citizen, Harry Truman (1960)

Sense , Animals , Horse

“The people can never understand why the President does not use his powers to make them behave. Well all the president is, is a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing, and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway.”

Harry Truman

Letter to Mary Jane Truman (14 November 1947)

People , Understanding , Kiss , Time

“Nothing but a damn bunch of bullshit!”

Harry Truman

On General Douglas MacArthur's "Old Soldiers Never Die" speech, as quoted in The Fifties (1993) by David Halberstam

“One of the difficulties with all our institutions is the fact that we've emphasized the reward instead of the service.”

Harry Truman

Letter http://books.google.com/books?id=DVVffTwVVy4C&q=%22One+of+the+difficulties+with+all+our+institutions+is+the+fact+that+we've+emphasized+the+reward+instead+of+the+service%22&pg=PA166#v=onepage to Harold E. Moore (27 September 1949)

“Reported in Truman Speaks (1960), p. 59.”

Harry Truman

“I was the only calm one in the house. You see I’ve been shot at by experts.”

Harry Truman

Comment on his World War I experience after an assassination attempt on (1 November 1950) as quoted in Bess W. Truman (1986) by Margaret Truman

Housing

“You know, the United States Government turns its Chief Executive out to grass. They're just allowed to starve... If I hadn't inherited some property that finally paid things through, I'd be on relief now.”

Harry Truman

Interview with Edward R. Murrow on CBS Television (2 February 1958)

Grass

“People are very much wrought up about the Communist bugaboo.”

Harry Truman

Letter to George H. Earle, former governor of Pennsylvania (received 28 February 1947); reported in The New York Times (3 April 1947), p. 17, quoting Earle.

People

“Some of my best friends never agree with me politically.”

Harry Truman

Statement to a group of four congress freshmen (2 July 1947), as quoted in The Memoirs of Richard Nixon, p. 44

“I am not sure it can ever be used… I don't think we ought to use this thing unless we absolutely have to. It is a terrible thing to order the use of something that is so terribly destructive, destructive beyond anything we have ever had. You have got to understand that this isn’t a military weapon. It is used to wipe out women and children and unarmed people, and not for military uses. So we have got to treat this differently from rifles and cannon and ordinary things like that.”

Harry Truman

Regarding nuclear weapons, as quoted in Harry S. Truman: A Life https://books.google.com/books?id=7UXSMj3OF4oC&pg=PA344&lpg=PA344&dq=%22It+is+used+to+wipe+out+women+and+children+and+unarmed+people,+and+not+for+military+uses.+So+we+have+got+to+treat+this+differently+from+rifles+and+cannon+and+ordinary+things+like+that.%E2%80%9D&source=bl&ots=xoePU9q9JU&sig=Lxl_x7toU7Y3oD_zKKSZQ2zD29k&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCgQ6AEwA2oVChMIw7D1wb6dxwIVSjI-Ch3ibAd2#v=onepage&q=%22It%20is%20used%20to%20wipe%20out%20women%20and%20children%20and%20unarmed%20people%2C%20and%20not%20for%20military%20uses.%20So%20we%20have%20got%20to%20treat%20this%20differently%20from%20rifles%20and%20cannon%20and%20ordinary%20things%20like%20that.%E2%80%9D&f=false, by Robert H. Ferrell, p. 344

Women , Children , People , Understanding

“The British, Chinese, and United States Governments have given the Japanese people adequate warning of what is in store for them. We have laid down the general terms on which they can surrender. Our warning went unheeded; our terms were rejected. Since then the Japanese have seen what our atomic bomb can do. They can foresee what it will do in the future.”

Harry Truman

Report on the Potsdam Conference (1945)

People , Future

“It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin. This policy shall be put into effect as rapidly as possible, having due regard to the time required to effectuate any necessary changes without impairing efficiency or morale.”

Harry Truman

Executive Order 9981 (1948)

Religion , Color , Change , Time

“I am not worried about the Communist Party taking over the Government of the United States, but I am against a person, whose loyalty is not to the Government of the United States, holding a Government job. They are entirely different things. I am not worried about this country ever going Communist. We have too much sense for that.”

Harry Truman

Responding to a question at his press conference (February 28, 1947); reported in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Harry S. Truman, 1947, p. 191

Sense , Personality , Loyalty , Country

“The Russians are like us, they look and act like us. They are fine people. They got along with our soldiers in Berlin very well. As far as I am concerned, they can have whatever they want just so they don't try to impose their system on others.”

Harry Truman

Statement to a group of four congress freshmen (2 July 1947), as quoted in The Memoirs of Richard Nixon, p. 44

People

“Had ten minutes conversation with Henry Morgenthau about Jewish ship in Palistine. Told him I would talk to Gen[eral] Marshall about it. He'd no business, whatever to call me. The Jews have no sense of proportion nor do they have any judgement on world affairs. Henry brought a thousand Jews to New York on a supposedly temporary basis and they stayed. When the country went backward — and Republican in the election of 1946, this incident loomed large on the DP [Displaced Person] program. The Jews, I find are very, very selfish. They care not how many Estonians, Latvians, Finns, Poles, Yugoslavs or Greeks get murdered or mistreated as DP as long as the Jews get special treatment. Yet when they have power, physical, financial or political neither Hitler nor Stalin has anything on them for cruelty or mistreatment to the under dog. Put an underdog on top and it makes no difference whether his name is Russian, Jewish, Negro, Management, Labor, Mormon, Baptist he goes haywire. I've found very, very few who remember their past condition when prosperity comes. Look at the Congress[ional] attitude on DP — and they all come from DPs.”

Harry Truman

Personal diary 6:00 P. M. Monday (21 July 1947) https://www.trumanlibrary.org/diary/page21.htm

World , Dogs , Business , Sense

“All executive departments and agencies of the Federal Government are authorized and directed to cooperate with the Committee in its work, and to furnish the Committee such information or the services of such persons as the Committee may require in the performance of its duties.”

Harry Truman

Executive Order 9981 (1948)

Personality

“I have read your lousy review of Margaret’s concert. I’ve come to the conclusion that you are an eight ulcer man on a four ulcer job … Some day I hope to meet you. When that happens you’ll need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes and perhaps a supporter below.”

Harry Truman

Letter to critic Paul Hume, as quoted in TIME magazine (18 December 1950)

Hope , Support , Reading

“The Russians are liars – you can't trust them. At Potsdam they agreed to everything and broke their word. It's too bad the second world power is like this, but that's the way it is, and we must keep our strength.”

Harry Truman

Statement to Richard Nixon and his wife Pat in 1969, as quoted in The Memoirs of Richard Nixon, p. 44

World , Way

“I sincerely wish that every member of Congress could visit the displaced person's camp in Germany and Austria and see just what is happening to 500,000 human beings through no fault of their own.”

Harry Truman

Letter to Walter F. George (October 1946); as quoted in Great Jewish Quotations (1996) by Alfred J. Kolatch, p. 463

Personality , Sincerity

“I don’t give a damn about “The Missouri Waltz” but I can’t say it out loud because it’s the song of Missouri. It’s as bad as “The Star-Spangled Banner” so far as music is concerned.”

Harry Truman

As quoted in TIME magazine (10 February 1958)

Music , Star

“Senator Barkley and I will win this election and make these Republicans like it — don't forget that! We will do that because they are wrong and we are right, and I will prove it to you in just a few minutes.”

Harry Truman

Address to the Democratic National Convention (15 July 1948) http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/presidents/33_truman/psources/ps_convention48.html; this has often been paraphrased as: "They are wrong and we are right and I'm going to prove it to you!"

Forgetting

“The buck stops here!”

Harry Truman

This saying, also popularized by Truman, was on a sign on his desk https://www.trumanlibrary.org/buckstop.htm, but did not originate with him. According to the Truman Presidential Library, it was sent to him nearly two months after the Hiroshima atomic bombing.
Misattributed

“Your old friend Congressman Hartley of the Taft Hartley team … has written a book … The title of this book is Our New National Labor Policy, the Taft-Hartley Act and the Next Steps.”

Harry Truman

Get that: "The Next Steps" … They're going even further! … The Republicans favor a minimum wage — the smaller the minimum the better.
Harry Truman at Akron (11 October 1948), Good Old Harry

Books

“There isn’t any difference between the totalitarian Russian Government and the Hitler government and the Franco government in Spain. They are all alike. They are police state governments.”

Harry Truman

Source: News Conference at Key West, March 30, 1950

“People are very much wrought up about the Communist bugaboo... the country is perfectly safe so far as Communism is concerned—we have too many sane people.”

Harry Truman

Letter to George H. Earle, former governor of Pennsylvania (received 28 February 1947); reported in The New York Times (3 April 1947), p. 17, quoting Earle.
Source: [McCullough, David G., Truman, 2003, Simon & Schuster, 978-0-7432-6029-9, 655, 869432463]

Country , People , Communication