Time & Perspective Quote by Harry S. Truman

Truman’s charm here is doing the work of a whole political philosophy: the greatness Americans demand from presidents is both unavoidable and, quietly, a little absurd. “I wouldn’t say that I was in the great class” sounds like modesty, but it’s also a strategic refusal to let history’s scorekeepers own the narrative. He won’t audition for Mount Rushmore in public. He’s too canny for that. Instead, he relocates judgment from the pedestal to the process: “I had a great time while I was trying to be great.”

The subtext is pure Truman: blunt, self-deprecating, and allergic to aristocratic mythmaking. This is a man who took office under the shadow of FDR, then made decisions that still detonate across the 20th century: ending World War II with the atomic bomb, launching the Marshall Plan, recognizing Israel, building NATO, ordering desegregation of the armed forces, and fighting a grinding war in Korea. “Trying to be great” isn’t a self-help slogan in that context; it’s an admission that presidency is improvisation under catastrophic stakes, with history judging in real time and usually unfairly.

The line also carries an underrated edge. By foregrounding “a great time,” Truman sidesteps the sanctimony that often coats accounts of leadership. He implies that ambition can be sincere without being solemn, that public service can include gusto, competitiveness, even enjoyment. It’s a democratic kind of greatness: not inherited, not guaranteed, and not fully legible until long after the trying is done.