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When you can't do any housecleaning because everything that goes on is a damned secret, then we're on our way to something the Founding Fathers didn't have in mind. Secrecy and a free, democratic government don't mix.

Harry S. Truman

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Harry S. Truman
Age: 88 †
Born: 1884
Born: May 8
Died: 1972
Died: December 26
33Rd U.S. President
Businessperson
Diarist
Judge
Military Officer
Politician
Lamar
Missouri
Harry Truman
Truman
President Truman
H. S. Truman
H. Truman
Harry S. Truman
Everything
Fathers
Mind
Democratic
Something
Goes
Way
Secret
Free
Father
Secrecy
Didn
Damned
Government
Founding

More quotes by Harry S. Truman

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John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were political enemies, but they became fast friends. And when they passed away on the same day, the last words of one of them was, The country is safe. Jefferson still lives. And the last words of the other was, John Adams will see that things go forward.
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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There is some risk involved in action, there always is. But there is far more risk in failure to act.
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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He wanted to know what assurance we could give the American people that we aren't getting the tar licked out of us by the North Korean army. It has never happened to us. It won't happen this time.
Harry S. Truman
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This generation, raised on Eyewitness News, conditioned by the instant replay, and spared the illumination that comes from tedious historical study, tends to be even more ahistorical than most.
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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...as soon as the war was over, they had to justify what was done.
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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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.
Harry S. Truman
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I like riding a bicycle built for two--by myself.
Harry S. Truman
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Millions of our citizens do not now have a full measure of opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health. Millions do not now have protection or security against the economic effects of sickness. The time has arrived for action to help them attain that opportunity and that protection.
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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I wonder how many times you have to be hit on the head before you find out who's hitting you? It's about time that the people of America realized what the Republicans have been doing to them.
Harry S. Truman
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If you want a friend in Washington, buy a dog.
Harry S. Truman
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May we Americans all live up to our glorious heritage.
Harry S. Truman
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I can always get along with an honest friend.
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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Put an underdog on top and it makes no difference whether his name is Russian, Jewish, Negro, Management, Labor, Mormon, or Baptist he goes haywire. I've found very, very few who remember their past condition when prosperity comes.
Harry S. Truman
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We all have to recognise - no matter how great our strength - that we must deny ourselves the licence to do always as we please.
Harry S. Truman