Harry S Truman President Quotations

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.

Most of the problems a President has to face have their roots in the past.

I would rather have peace in the world than be President.

The President is always abused. If he isn't, he isn't doing anything.

The president is the representative of the whole nation and he's the only lobbyist that all the one hundred and sixty million people in the country have.

It's tougher to be a football coach than the President of the United States. You've got four years as a president, and they guard you. A football coach doesn't have anyone to protect him when things go wrong.

I enjoyed my new position as vice president, but it took me a while to get used to the fact that I no longer had the voting privileges I had enjoyed for 10 years as a senator.

I don't feel qualified to be president either, but I've got the job.

I tend to pair up Benjamin Harrison and Dwight Eisenhower because they're the two presidents I can think of who most preferred laziness to labor.... There's not much else you can say about Harrison except that he was president of the United States.

I consider Monroe a pretty minor president. In spite of the Monroe Doctrine. That's the only important thing he ever did more or less on his own, when you really get down to it.

Within the first few months I discovered that being president is like riding a tiger. A man has to keep riding or be swallowed. The fantastically crowded nine months of 1945 taught me that a President either is constantly on top of events or, if he hesitates, events will soon be on top of him. I never felt I could let up for a single moment.

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.

One of the presidents we could have done without.... There are some things I admire about Tyler, but there were also plenty of things that weren't so admirable.... The reason I have a certain amount of grudging respect for John Tyler is that he knew his own mind and stuck to his decisions.

Being President is a little bit like riding a tiger. You have to keep riding, or else you will be swallowed up by it!

I sit here all day trying to persuade people to do the things they ought to have the sense to do without my persuading them. That's all the powers of the President amount to.

No one who has not had the responsibility can really understand what it is like to be President, not even his closest aides or members of his immediate family. There is no end to the chain of responsibility that binds him, and he is never allowed to forget that he is President.

It sure is hell to be president.

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.

A President cannot always be popular.

No man should be allowed to be President who does not understand hogs.

Being a president is like riding a tiger. A man has to keep on riding or he is swallowed.