Harry S Truman

You know that being an American is more than a matter of where your parents came from. It is a belief that all men are created free and equal and that everyone deserves an even break.

It is understanding that gives us an ability to have peace. When we understand the other fellow's viewpoint, and he understands ours, then we can sit down and work out our differences.

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

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

Those who want the Government to regulate matters of the mind and spirit are like men who are so afraid of being murdered that they commit suicide to avoid assassination.

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

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

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

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.

You want a friend in Washington? Get a dog.

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

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

A President cannot always be popular.

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

In reading the lives of great men, I found that the first victory they won was over themselves... self-discipline with all of them came first.

Richard Nixon is a no good, lying bastard. He can lie out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, and if he ever caught himself telling the truth, he'd lie just to keep his hand in.

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

Intense feeling too often obscures the truth.