Harry S. Truman Quotes

Tact is the ability to step on a man's toes without messing up the shine on his shoes.

It is not enough to yearn for peace. We must work, and if necessary, fight for it. The task of creating a sound international organization is complicated and difficult. Yet, without such organization, the rights of man on earth cannot be protected. Machinery for the just settlement of international differences must be found. Without such machinery, the entire world will have to remain an armed camp. The world will be doomed to deadly conflict, devoid of hope for real peace.

Fame is a vapor, popularity is an accident, riches take wings, those who cheer today may curse tomorrow and only one thing endures - character.

The bulk of the uranium available to

My choice early in life was either to be a piano-player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth there's hardly any difference.

Everybody wants something at the expense of everybody else and nobody thinks much of the other fellow.

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.

We are in a troublesome period, and some "nonsense" as you term it — but this is a great nation with a high purpose, and we shall come to our senses and resume our course.

I fired him because he wouldn't respect the authority of the president. That's the answer to that. I didn't fire him because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, but that's not against the law for generals. If it was, half to three-quarters of them would be in jail.

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

On tight money: It reflects a reversion to the old idea that the tree can be fertilized at the top instead of at the bottom — the old trickle-down theory.

If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.

If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible, although I don't want to see Hitler victorious under any circumstances. Neither of them thinks anything of their pledged word.

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'm proud that I'm a politician. A politician is a man who understands government, and it takes a politician to run a government. A statesman is a politician who's been dead 10 or 15 years.