Richard M. Nixon Quotes

The greatest honor history can bestow is the title of peacemaker.

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

My view is that one should not break up a winning combination.

I have earned every cent. And in all of my years of public life I have never obstructed justice.

I have impeached myself by resigning.

Millions who endure poverty and bad government can now know what they are missing. To see how the other half lives all they have to do is switch on their television sets.

Unpredictability is the greatest asset a leader can have.

The recent upsurge of public concern over environmental questions reflects a belated recognition that man has been too cavalier in his relations with nature. Unless we arrest the depredations that have been inflicted so carelessly on our natural systems-which exist in an intricate set of balances-we face the prospect of ecological disaster.

I had never expected that the China initiative would come to fruition in the form of a Ping-Pong team.

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.

If, when the chips are down, the worlds most powerful nation, the United States of America, acts like a pitiful, helpless giant, the forces of totalitarianism and anarchy will threaten free nations and free institutions throughout the world.

We must adopt reforms which will expand the range of opportunities for all Americans. We can fulfill the American dream only when each person has a fair chance to fulfill his own dreams. This means equal voting rights, equal employment opportunity and new opportunities for expanded ownership, because in order to be secure in their human rights, people need access to property rights.

The color of communism was not red but gray.

[The public lands represent] in a sense, the breathing space of the nation.

What kind of nation we will be, what kind of world we will live in, whether we shape the future in the image of our hopes, is ours to determine by our actions and our choices.

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

I would rather be a one-term President and do what I believe is right than to be a two-term President at the cost of seeing America become a second-race power and to see this Nation accept the first defeat in its proud 190-year history.

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.

Clean air, clean water, open spaces - these should once again be the birthright of every American.

I'm not a crook. I've earned everything I've got.

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.

Peace is the real and right memorial for those who have died in war.

If the President does it, it can't be illegal.

Nothing matters more to the future of this Nation than insuring that our young men and women learn to believe in themselves and believe in their dreams, and that they develop this capacitythat you develop this capacity, so that you keep it all of your lives. I believe one of Americas most priceless assets is the idealism which motivates the young people of America. My generation has invested all that it has, not only its love but its hope and faith, in yours.

We must maintain the integrity of the White House, and that integrity must be real, not transparent. There can be no whitewash at the White House.

No words can describe the depths of my regret and pain at the anguish my mistakes over Watergate have caused the nation and the presidency - a nation I so deeply love and an institution I so greatly respect.

The language of politics is poetry, not prose. Jackson is poetry. Cuomo is poetry. Dukakis is a word processor.

I was not lying. I said things that later on seemed to be untrue.

I don't give a damn about the civilians.

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

Success is not a harbor but a voyage with its own perils to the spirit ... The lesson that most of us on this voyage never learn, but can never quite forget, is that to win is sometimes to lose.

The worst thing a politician can be is dull. At least I'm interesting.

In his heart everyone knows that the only people who get rich from the "get rich quick" books are those who write them.

I knew if I continued to look around it would be difficult for me to contain my own emotions. So I turned away from the red eyes of the crowd and looked only at the red eye of the camera, talking to all the nation.

Don't get the impression that you arouse my anger. You see, one can only be angry with those he respects.

The peace we seek in the world is not the flimsy peace which is merely an interlude between wars, but a peace which can endure for generations to come. It is important that we understand both the necessity and the limitations of America's role in maintaining that peace. Unless we in America work to preserve the peace, there will be no peace. Unless we in America work to preserve freedom, there will be no freedom.

The developing coherence of Asian regional thinking is reflected in a disposition to consider problems and loyalties in regional terms, and to evolve regional approaches to development needs and to the evolution of a New World Order.

Those who hate us only win if we hate them back

When the strongest nation in the world can be tied up for years in a war with no end in sight, when the richest nation in the world can't manage its own economy, when the nation with the greatest tradition of the rule of law is plagued by unprecedented lawlessness, and when the President of the United States cannot travel abroad or to any major city at home without fear of a hostile demonstration - then it's time for new leadership for the United States of America.

The greatness comes not when things go always good for you. But the greatness comes when you're really tested, when you take some knocks, some disappointments, when sadness comes. Because only if you've been in the deepest valley can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.

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.

Let us move from the era of confrontation to the era of negotiation.

We shall continue, in this era of negotiation, to work for the limitation of nuclear arms and to reduce the danger of confrontation between the great powers.

I never leave a game before the last pitch, because in baseball, as in life and especially politics, you never know what will happen.

The memory of that scene for me is like a frame of film forever frozen at that moment: the red carpet, the green lawn, the white house, the leaden sky. The new president and his first lady.

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.

The man of thought who will not act is ineffective; the man of action who will not think is dangerous.

My telephone calls and meetings and decisions were now parts of a prescribed ritual aimed at making peace with the past; his calls, his meetings and his decisions were already the ones that would shape America's future." (On transfer of power to Gerald R Ford)