367 Quotes by Harry S. Truman

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

In my generation, this was not the first occasion when the strong had attacked the weak. [...] Communism was acting in Korea just as Hitler, Mussolini, and the Japanese had acted ten, fifteen, and twenty years earlier. I felt certain that if South Korea was allowed to fall, communist leaders would be emboldened to override nations closer to our own shores.

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.

[we are] going to continue to fight communism. Now I am going to tell you how we are not going to fight communism. We are not going to transform our fine FBI into a Gestapo secret police. That is what some people would like to do. We are not going to try to control what our people read and say and think. We are not going to turn the United States into a right-wing totalitarian country in order to deal with a left-wing totalitarian threat.

A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties.

The stress stops here.

Religious and racial persecution is moronic at all times, perhaps the most idiotic of human stupidities.

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

Beware of the guy praying loudest in the amen corner.