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I was the only calm one in the house. You see I've been shot at by experts.
Harry S. Truman
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Without a strong educational system democracy is crippled. Knowledge is not only key to power. It is the citadel of human freedom.
Harry S. Truman
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It is my deep conviction that we have reached a turning point in our country's efforts to guarantee freedom and equality to all our citizens. Recent events in the United States and abroad have made us realize that it is more important today than ever before to insure that all Americans enjoy these rights. When I say all Americans, I mean all Americans.
Harry S. Truman
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We are now prepared to obliterate more rapidly and completely every productive enterprise the Japanese have above ground in any city. We shall destroy their docks, their factories, and their communications. Let there be no mistake; we shall completely destroy Japan's power to make war.
It was to spare the Japanese people from utter destruction that the ultimatum of July 26 was issued at Potsdam. Their leaders promptly rejected that ultimatum. If they do not now accept our terms they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth.
Harry S. Truman
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The British, Chinese, and United States Governments have given the Japanese people adequate warning of what is in store for them. We have laid down the general terms on which they can surrender. Our warning went unheeded; our terms were rejected. Since then the Japanese have seen what our atomic bomb can do. They can foresee what it will do in the future.
Harry S. Truman
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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.
Harry S. Truman
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So much blood has already been shed for the ideals which we cherish, and for which Franklin Delano Roosevelt lived and died, that we dare not permit even a momentary pause in the hard fight for victory.
Today, the entire world is looking to America for enlightened leadership to peace and progress. Such a leadership requires vision, courage and tolerance. It can be provided only by a united nation deeply devoted to the highest ideals.
Harry S. Truman
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I wonder how far Moses would have gone if he had taken a poll in Egypt? What would Jesus Christ have preached if He had taken a poll in the land of Israel?
Harry S. Truman
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All executive departments and agencies of the Federal Government are authorized and directed to cooperate with the Committee in its work, and to furnish the Committee such information or the services of such persons as the Committee may require in the performance of its duties.
Harry S. Truman
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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!
Harry S. Truman
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The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know.
Harry S. Truman
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We know now that the basic proposition of the worth and dignity of man is not a sentimental aspiration or a vain hope or a piece of rhetoric. It is the strongest, most creative force now present in this world.
Now let us use that force and all our resources and all our skills in the great cause of a just and lasting peace!
The Three Great Powers are now more closely than ever bound together in determination to achieve that kind of peace. From Teheran, and the Crimea, from San Francisco and Berlin — we shall continue to march together to a lasting peace and a happy world!
Harry S. Truman
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Children and dogs are as necessary to the welfare of the country as Wall Street and the railroads.
Harry S. Truman
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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.
Harry S. Truman
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There is a right kind and wrong kind of victory, just as there are wars for the right thing and wars that are wrong from every standpoint.... The kind of victory MacArthur had in mind—victory by the bombing of Chinese cities, victory by expanding the conflict to all of China—would have been the wrong kind of victory.
Harry S. Truman
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What's a statesman anyway? I'll tell you what he is – he's just a politician no one is afraid of any more.
Harry S. Truman
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Some of the presidents were great and some of them weren't. I can say that, because I wasn't one of the great presidents, but I had a good time trying to be one, I can tell you that.
Harry S. Truman
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Republicans don't like people to talk about depressions. You can hardly blame them for that. You remember the old saying: Don't talk about rope in the house where somebody has been hanged.
Harry S. Truman
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He'll sit right here and he'll say do this, do that! And nothing will happen. Poor Ike—it won't be a bit like the Army.
Of his successor eisenhower
Harry S. Truman
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I had carefully read the Balfour Declaration. I had familiarized myself with the history of the question of a Jewish homeland and the position of the British and the Arabs. I was skeptical, as I read over the whole record up to date, about some of the views and attitudes assumed by the 'striped-pants boys' in the State Department.
Harry S. Truman
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I sit here all day trying to persuade people to do the things they ought to have sense enough to do without my persuading them … that's all the powers of the President amount to.
Harry S. Truman
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A politician is a man who understands government and it takes a politician to run a government. A statesman is a politician who's been dead ten or fifteen years.
Harry S. Truman
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If I hadn't been President of the United States, I probably would have ended up a piano player in a bawdy house.
Harry S. Truman
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This Nation was established by men who believed in God.... You will see the evidence of this deep religious faith on every hand.
Harry S. Truman
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It is an awful responsibility which has come to us.
We thank God that it has come to us, instead of to our enemies; and we pray that He may guide us to use it in His ways and for His purposes.
Harry S. Truman
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Quote of the day
Destiny is the invention of the cowardly, and the resigned.
Ignazio Silone
Harry S. Truman
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Born:
May 8, 1884
Died:
December 26, 1972
(aged 88)
Bio:
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States, an American politician of the Democratic Party.
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