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I can remember when a good politician had to be 75 percent ability and 25 percent actor, but I can well see the day when the reverse could be true.
Harry S Truman
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Everybody is headed for the same place, and they are headed on the same train, and under the same engineer.
Harry S Truman
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Give me a one-handed economist! All my economists say, On the one hand on the other.
Harry S Truman
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There has been a lot of talk lately about the burdens of the Presidency. Decisions that the President has to make often affect the lives of tens of millions of people around the world, but that does not mean that they should take longer to make. Some men can make decisions and some cannot. Some men fret and delay under criticism. I used to have a saying that applies here, and I note that some people have picked it up, If you cant stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
Harry S Truman
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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.
Harry S Truman
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I don't feel qualified to be president either, but I've got the job.
Harry S Truman
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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.
Harry S Truman
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There's nothing better than cake but more cake.
Harry S Truman
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France is France and a grand place for Frenchman.
Harry S Truman
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It is noble in its administration: to think and let think, beyond the narrow contracted prejudices of bitter sectarians in these modern times. It is general or universal language, fitted to benefit the poor stranger, which no other institution is calculated to reach, by extending the beneficent hand.
Harry S Truman
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We fully realize today that victory in war requires a mighty united effort. Certainly, victory in peace calls for, and must receive, an equal effort. Man has learned long ago, that it is impossible to live unto himself. This same basic principle applies today to nations. We were not isolated during the war. We dare not now become isolated in peace.
Harry S Truman
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Everybody has the right to express what he thinks. That, of course, lets the crackpots in. But if you cannot tell a crackpot when you see one, then you ought to be taken in.
Harry S Truman
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He was a great president in his first term; in his second term, he wasn't the same Grover Cleveland he was to begin with. ...Cleveland reestablished the presidency by being not only a chief executive but a leader.
Harry S Truman
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Keep working on a plan. Make no little plans. Make the biggest plan you can think of and spend the rest of your life carrying it out.
Harry S Truman
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The absence of war is not peace.
Harry S Truman
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I like riding a bicycle built for two--by myself.
Harry S Truman
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It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours.
Harry S Truman
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It is time that all Americans realized that the place of labor is side by side with the businessman and with the farmer, and not one-degree lower.
Harry S Truman
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A president either is constantly on top of events or, if he hesitates, events will soon be on top of him. I never felt that I could let up for a moment.
Harry S Truman
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When the decision is up before you-and on my desk I have a motto which says "The buck stops here"-the decision has to be made.
Harry S Truman
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If you don't have your own goals, you'll be doomed to work toward someone else's.
Harry S Truman
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When a leader is in the Democratic Party he's a boss. When he's in the Republican Party he's nothing but a leader.
Harry S Truman
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It can be lost, and it will be, if the time ever comes when these documents are regarded not as the supreme expression of our profound belief, but merely as curiosities in glass cases.
Harry S Truman
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Of course, there are dangers in religious freedom and freedom of opinion. But to deny these rights is worse than dangerous, it is absolutely fatal to liberty. The external threat to liberty should not drive us into suppressing liberty at home. 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.
Harry S Truman
