It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.
Harry S Truman
If you can't convince them, confuse them.
America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.
You want a friend in Washington? Get a dog.
If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know.
Men make history and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better.
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.
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.
I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.
It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours.
A leader in the Democratic Party is a boss, in the Republican Party he is a leader.
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.
The reward of suffering is experience.
When even one American - who has done nothing wrong - is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth - then all Americans are in peril.
Whenever you put a man on the Supreme Court he ceases to be your friend.
When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship.
The Marine Corps is the Navy's police force and as long as I am President that is what it will remain. They have a propaganda machine that is almost equal to Stalin's.
A President cannot always be popular.
The atom bomb was no 'great decision.' It was merely another powerful weapon in the arsenal of righteousness.
Always be sincere, even if you don't mean it.
The White House is the finest prison in the world.
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.
You can never get all the facts from just one newspaper, and unless you have all the facts, you cannot make proper judgements about what is going on.
I never gave anybody hell! I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.
I remember when I first came to Washington. For the first six months you wonder how the hell you ever got here. For the next six months you wonder how the hell the rest of them ever got here.
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.
A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties.
Carry the battle to them. Don't let them bring it to you. Put them on the defensive and don't ever apologize for anything.
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.
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.
My father was not a failure. After all, he was the father of a president of the United States.
The only things worth learning are the things you learn after you know it all.
Actions are the seed of fate deeds grow into destiny.
If I'd known how much packing I'd have to do, I'd have run again.
The President is always abused. If he isn't, he isn't doing anything.
A politician is a man who understands government. A statesman is a politician who's been dead for 15 years.
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.
I do not believe there is a problem in this country or the world today which could not be settled if approached through the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount.
Art is parasitic on life, just as criticism is parasitic on art.
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!
The United Nations is designed to make possible lasting freedom and independence for all its members.
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.
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.
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.
The buck stops here!
Any man who has had the job I've had and didn't have a sense of humor wouldn't still be here.
All my life, whenever it comes time to make a decision, I make it and forget about it.
Experience has shown how deeply the seeds of war are planted by economic rivalry and social injustice.
In my opinion eight years as president is enough and sometimes too much for any man to serve in that capacity.
