Richard M. Nixon Quotes

The peace we seek to win is not victory over any other people, but the peace that comes "with healing in its wings;" with compassion for those who have suffered; with understanding for those who have opposed us; with the opportunity for all the peoples of this Earth to choose their own destiny.

The successful leader does not talk down to people. He lifts them up.

I never say something I cannot do. And I always will do more than I can say.

The easiest period in a crisis situation is actually the battle itself. The most difficult is the period of indecision - whether to fight or run away. And the most dangerous period is the aftermath. It is then, with all his resources spent and his guard down, that an individual must watch out for dulled reactions and faulty judgment.

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.

The presidency has many problems, but boredom is the least of them.

If in order to avoid further Communist expansion in Asia and particularly in Indo-China, if in order to avoid it we must take the risk by putting American boys in, I believe that the executive branch of the government has to take the politically unpopular position of facing up to it and doing it, and I personally would support such a decision.

Lyndon Johnson rose above the doubt and fear to hold this Nation on course until we rediscovered our faith in ourselves.

... Member Countries shall take necessary action and/or shall establish negotiations, individually or in groups, with the oil companies with a view to adopting ways and means to offset any adverse effects on the per barrel real income of Member Countries resulting from the international monetary developments as of 15th August 1971.

Those who hate you don't win unless you hate them back.

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

The Jews are just a very aggressive and abrasive and obnoxious personality.

Look, people get drunk ... People chase girls. And the point is, it's a hell of a lot better for them to get drunk than to take drugs. It's better to chase girls than boys.

A riot is a spontaneous outburst. A war is subject to advance planning.

Sure there are dishonest men in local government. But there are dishonest men in national government too.

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.

If some of my judgments were wrong - and some were wrong - they were made in what I believed at the time to be the best interest of the nation.

Those few days after Kent State were among the darkest of my presidency.

You must never give up. You must remember that you have to take risks in order to achieve anything and sometimes you will suffer defeat. But the mark of any individual is to recover from defeat and disappointment and go on and give it his best shot.

When I am the candidate, I run the campaign.

We do not learn by inference and deduction and the application of mathematics to philosophy, but by direct intercourse and sympathy.

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.

We still think of air as free. But clean air is not free, and neither is clean water. The price tag on pollution control is high. Through our years of past carelessness we incurred a debt to nature, and now that debt is being called.

Economic power is not the same as strength of national character. Our country may be rich in goods, but we are poor in spirit.

We believe that part of the answer lies in pricing energy on the basis of its full costs to society. One reason we use energy so lavishly today is that the price of energy does not include all of the social costs of producing it. The costs incurred in protecting the environment and the health and safety of workers, for example, are part of the real costs of producing energy-but they are not now all included in the price of the product.

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

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

The important thing is that we maintain plausible deniability.

I always remember that whatever I have done in the past or may do in the future, Duke University is responsible in one way or another.

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.

This Memorial Day should remind us of the greatness that past generations of Americans achieved from Valley Forge to Vietnam, and it should inspire us with the determination to keep America great and free by keeping America safe and strong in our own time, a time of unique destiny and opportunity for our Nation.

The only time in the history of the world that we have had any extended periods of peace is when there has been a balance of power. It is when one nation becomes infinitely more powerful in relation to its potential competitors that the danger of war arises.

No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now.

Once genius is submerged by bureaucracy, a nation is doomed to mediocrity.

Writing is the toughest thing I've ever done.

The sky is no longer the limit.

Mr. Stevenson has a degree alright-a PhD from the Acheson College of Cowardly Communist Containment.

The Pakistanis are straightforward and sometimes extremely stupid. The Indians are more devious, sometimes so smart that we fall for their line.

Peace demands more, not less, from a people. Peace lacks the clarity of purpose and the cadence of war. War is scripted: peace is improvisation.

They put the Jewish interest above America's interest and it's about goddamn time that the Jew in America realizes he's an American first and a Jew second.

This is the greatest week in the history of the world since the Creation, because as a result of what happened in this week, the world is bigger, infinitely.

I let the American people down.

America will not tolerate being pushed around by anybody, anyplace.

It is sad that it was necessary that Santa Barbara should be the example that had to bring it to the attention of the American people. What is involved is the use of our resources of the sea and of the land in a more effective way and with more concern for preserving the beauty and the natural resources that are so important to any kind of society that we want for the future. The Santa Barbara incident has frankly touched the conscience of the American people.

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.

While technically I did not commit a crime, an impeachable offense... these are legalisms, as far as the handling of this matter is concerned; it was so botched up, I made so many bad judgments. The worst ones, mistakes of the heart, rather than the head. But let me say, a man in that top job - he's got to have a heart, but his head must always rule his heart.

Communism starts with the proposition that there are no universal truths or general truths of human nature.

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.