Harry S. Truman

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

“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.”

“You and I are stuck with the necessity of taking the worst of two evils or none at all. So-I'm taking the immature Democrat as the best of the two. Nixon is impossible.”

“I had faith in Israel before it was established, I have in it now. I believe it has a glorious future before it - not just another sovereign nation, but as an embodiment of the great ideals of our civilization.”

“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.”

“The United Nations is designed to make possible lasting freedom and independence for all its members.”

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

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

“Intense feeling too often obscures the truth.”

“I don't give them Hell. I just tell the truth about them and they think it's Hell.”

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

“Nixon is 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.”

“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.”

“The best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.”

“We shall never be able to remove suspicion and fear as potential causes of war until communication is permitted to flow, free and open, across international boundaries.”

“America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.”

“My father was not a failure. After all, he was the father of a president of the United States.”

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

“Experience has shown how deeply the seeds of war are planted by economic rivalry and social injustice.”

“The reward of suffering is experience.”

“Richard Nixon is a no good, lying b-----d. 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.”

“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.”

“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.”