There are some people, you know, they think the way to be a big man is to shout and stomp and raise hell-and then nothing ever really happens. I'm not like that I never shoot blanks.

We must recognize that the goal of a cleaner environment will not be achieved by rhetoric or moral dedication alone. It will not be cheap or easy and the costs will have to be borne by each citizen, consumer and taxpayer. How clean is clean enough can only be answered in terms of how much we are willing to pay and how soon we seek success... It is simplistic to seek ecological perfection at the cost of bankrupting the very tax-paying enterprises which must pay for the social advances we seek.

Listen, I don't know anything about polygraphs and I don't know how accurate they are, but I know they'll scare the hell out of people.

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.

You know very well that whether you are on page one or page thirty depends on whether they fear you. It's as simple as that.

Never be too proud to go onto your knees before God.

With all the power that a president has, the most important thing to bear in mind is this: You must not give power to a man unless, above everything else, he has character. Character is the most important qualification the president of the United States can have.