Richard M. Nixon Quotes

You've got to learn to survive a defeat. That's when you develop character.

Defeat doesn't finish a man, quit does. A man is not finished when he's defeated. He's finished when he quits.

Don't get the impression that you arouse my anger.

You see, one can only be angry with those he respects.

We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another - until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our voices.

Remember, always give your best. Never get discouraged. Never be petty. Always remember, others may hate you. But those who hate you don't win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.

Our chief justices have probably had more profound and lasting influence on their times and on the direction of the nation than most presidents.

A man is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.

Castro couldn't even go to the bathroom unless the Soviet Union put the nickel in the toilet.

Under the doctrine of separation of powers, the manner in which the president personally exercises his assigned executive powers is not subject to questioning by another branch of government.

If an individual wants to be a leader and isn't controversial, that means he never stood for anything.

Never let your head hang down. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way. And don't pray when it rains if you don't pray when the sun shines.

In the long term we can hope that religion will change the nature of man and reduce conflict. But history is not encouraging in this respect. The bloodiest wars in history have been religious wars.

People react to fear, not love; they don't teach that in Sunday School, but it's true.

Well, I screwed it up real good, didn't I?

I can take it. The tougher it gets, the cooler I get.

I wish I could give you a lot of advice, based on my experience of winning political debates. But I don't have that experience. My only experience is at losing them.

Let us build bridges, my friends, build bridges to human dignity across that gulf that separates black America from white America.

Finishing second in the Olympics gets you silver. Finishing second in politics gets you oblivion.

Any change is resisted because bureaucrats have a vested interest in the chaos in which they exist.

I gave 'em a sword. And they stuck it in, and they twisted it with relish. And I guess if I had been in their position, I'd have done the same thing.

I am not a crook.

Once you get into this great stream of history, you can't get out.

Politics would be a helluva good business if it weren't for the goddamned people.

I believe in the battle-whether it's the battle of a campaign or the battle of this office, which is a continuing battle.

My strong point, if I have a strong point, is performance.

I always do more than I say. I always produce more than I promise.

You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.

Let us begin by committing ourselves to the truth to see it like it is, and tell it like it is, to find the truth, to speak the truth, and to live the truth.

No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War.

It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now.

Government can provide opportunity. But opportunity means nothing unless people are prepared to seize it.

I've analyzed the best I can... and I have not found an impeachable offense, and therefore resignation is not an acceptable course.

I see the face of a child. He lives in a great city. He is black. Or he is white. He is Mexican, Italian, Polish. None of that matters. What matters, he's an American child.

Unless a president can protect the privacy of the advice he gets, he cannot get the advice he needs.

The Cold War isn't thawing; it is burning with a deadly heat. Communism isn't sleeping; it is, as always, plotting, scheming, working, fighting.

Any lady who is first lady likes being first lady. I don't care what they say, they like it.

Scrubbing floors and emptying bedpans has as much dignity as the Presidency.

The American people are entitled to see the president and to hear his views directly, and not to see him only through the press.

Certainly in the next 50 years we shall see a woman president, perhaps sooner than you think. A woman can and should be able to do any political job that a man can do.

President Johnson and I have a lot in common.

We were both born in small towns and we're both fortunate in the fact that we think we married above ourselves.

What starts the process, really, are laughs and slights and snubs when you are a kid. If your anger is deep enough and strong enough, you learn that you can change those attitudes by excellence, personal gut performance.

At home, we must reject the mistaken notion - a notion that has dominated too much of the public dialogue for too long - that ever bigger Government is the answer to every problem.

Americans admire a people who can scratch a desert and produce a garden.

The Israelis have shown qualities that Americans identify with: guts, patriotism, idealism, a passion for freedom. I have seen it. I know. I believe that.

In the television age, the key distinction is between the candidate who can speak poetry and the one who can only speak prose.

When I retire I'm going to spend my evenings by the fireplace going through those boxes. There are things in there that ought to be burned.

I'm glad I'm not Brezhnev. Being the Russian leader in the Kremlin. You never know if someone's tape recording what you say.

Those who hate you don't win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.

Tonight - to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans - I ask for your support.

The finest steel has to go through the hottest fire.

Life isn't meant to be easy. It's hard to take being on the top - or on the bottom. I guess I'm something of a fatalist. You have to have a sense of history, I think, to survive some of these things... Life is one crisis after another.

My own view is that taping of conversations for historical purposes was a bad decision on the part of all the presidents. I don't think Kennedy should have done it. I don't think Johnson should have done it, and I don't think we should have done it.

You must never be satisfied with losing.

You must get angry, terribly angry, about losing. But the mark of the good loser is that he takes his anger out on himself and not his victorious opponents or on his teammates.