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41 " Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear."[Special Message to the Congress on the Internal Security of the United States, August 8, 1950] "
― Harry Truman
42 " Tact is the ability to step on a man's toes without messing up the shine on his shoes. "
43 " I come to the office each morning and stay for long hours doing what has to be done to the best of my ability. And when you've done the best you can, you can't do any better. "
44 " It’s a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it’s a depression when you lose your own. "
45 " [we are] going to continue to fight communism. Now I am going to tell you how we are not going to fight communism. We are not going to transform our fine FBI into a Gestapo secret police. That is what some people would like to do. We are not going to try to control what our people read and say and think. We are not going to turn the United States into a right-wing totalitarian country in order to deal with a left-wing totalitarian threat. "
46 " Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers "
47 " In my generation, this was not the first occasion when the strong had attacked the weak. [...] Communism was acting in Korea just as Hitler, Mussolini, and the Japanese had acted ten, fifteen, and twenty years earlier. I felt certain that if South Korea was allowed to fall, communist leaders would be emboldened to override nations closer to our own shores. "
48 " A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties. "
49 " Taft explained that the great issue in this campaign is "creeping socialism." Now that is the patented trademark of the special interest lobbies. Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years.Socialism is what they called public power. Socialism is what they called social security.Socialism is what they called farm price supports.Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance.Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations.Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.When the Republican candidate inscribes the slogan "Down With Socialism" on the banner of his "great crusade," that is really not what he means at all.What he really means is, "Down with Progress--down with Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal," and "down with Harry Truman's fair Deal." That is what he means. (Rear Platform and Other Informal Remarks in SYRACUSE, NEW YORK (Near station, 1:25 p.m. October 10, 1952 )trumanlibrary dot org publicpapers "
50 " My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth, there’s hardly any difference. "
51 " We should resolve now that the health of this nation is a national concern; that financial barriers in the way of attaining health shall be removed; that the health of all it's citizens deserves the help of all the nation. "
52 " America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination, and unbeatable determination to do the job at hand. "
53 " I fired MacArthur because he wouldn’t respect the authority of the president. I didn’t fire him because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was. "
54 " There's nothing better than cake but more cake. "
55 " Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship. "
56 " I never would have agreed to the formulation of the Central Intelligence Agency back in forty-seven, if I had known it would become the American Gestapo. "
57 " It is ignorance that causes most mistakes. "
58 " The 'C' students run the world. "
59 " A bureaucrat is a Democrat who holds some office that a Republican wants. "
60 " We must have strong minds, ready to accept facts as they are. "