Richard M. Nixon Quotes

The lesson of all history warns us that we should negotiate only when our military superiority is so convincing that we can achieve our objective at the conference table, and deny the aggressor theirs.

I don't think a woman should be in any government job whatever. I mean, I really don't. The reason why I do is mainly because they are erratic and emotional.

Our youth can not understand why society chooses to criminalize a behavior with so little visible ill effect or adverse social impact... These young people have jumped the fence and found no cliff. And the disrespect for the possession laws fosters a disrespect for laws and the system in general... On top of this is the distinct impression among the youth that some police may use the marihuana laws to arrest people they don't like for other reasons, whether it be their politics, their hair style or their ethnic background.

Solutions are not the answer.

Don't try to take on a new personality; it doesn't work.

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.

Tell them to send everything that can fly.

Your mind must always go, even while you're shaking hands and going through all the maneuvers. I developed the ability long ago to do one thing while thinking about another.

If you want to make beautiful music, you must play the black and the white notes together.

Now that all the members of the press are so delighted I lost, I'd like to make a statement. As I leave you I want you to know -just think how much you'll be missing. You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.

When the President does it, that means that it's not illegal.

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.

Maybe New York shouldn't survive. Maybe it should go through a cycle of destruction.

I don't know anything that builds the will to win better than competitive sports.

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 know you heard what you thought I said, but what I said isn't what I meant.

The answer to many of the domestic problems we face is not higher taxes and more spending. It is less waste, more results and greater freedom for the individual American to earn a rightful place in his own community - and for States and localities to address their own needs in their own ways, in the light of their own priorities.

While might certainly does not make right, neither does right by itself make might.

My gravest secret is that I really did fake the moon landing. On Venus!

No president in history has been more vilified or was more vilivied during the time he was President than Lincoln. Those who knew him, his secretaries, have written that he was deeply hurt by what was said about him and drawn about him, but on the other hand, Lincoln had the great strength of character never to display it, always able to stand tall and strong and firm no matter how harsh or unfair the criticism might be. These elements of greatness, of course, inspire us all today.

Voters quickly forget what a man says.

The finest steel has to go through the hottest fire.

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

Most days I feel like the sole survivor of a shipwreck, rowing my paddleboat across a sea of people on waves made of an infinite array of hands and crests that reveal anonymous faces. On a good day, the clouds part to alight on-lo and behold-an island! I step ashore, only find that it too is made of people, mangled bodies somehow still alive. They grab at my feet, pulling me under like quicksand. The last thing I see before suffocating is the sky, a billion eyes staring down, blinking in undulating electric ripples. The cold rain I feel on my cheeks is the tears of the 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.

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 don't mind the homosexuality. I understand it. Nevertheless, goddamn, I don't think you glorify it on public television, homosexuality, even more than you glorify whores. We all know we have weaknesses. But, goddammit, what do you think that does to kids? You know what happened to the Greeks! Homosexuality destroyed them. Sure, Aristotle was a homo. We all know that. So was Socrates.

You can't depend on the man who made the mess to clean it up.

A man isn't finnished when he is beaten he is finnished when he quits

Extremists on the left tend to be just as critical of pragmatism as extremists on the right.

With all our differences, whenever we are confronted with a threat to our security we are not then Republicans or Democrats but Americans; we are not then the fifty states but the United States.

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.

I can see clearly now... that I was wrong in not acting more decisively and more forthrightly in dealing with Watergate.

There will be no whitewash in the White House.

You don't know how to lie. If you can't lie, you'll never go anywhere.

Baseball is great because anything can happen through the ninth inning.

We are all in it together. This is a war. We take a few shots and it will be over. We will give them a few shots and it will be over.

Any culture which can put a man on the Moon is capable of gathering all the nations of the earth in peace, justice and concord.

If you take no risks, you will suffer no defeats. But if you take no risks, you win no victories.

We are not spending the Federal Government's money, we are spending the taxpayer's money, and it must be spent n a way which guarantees his money's worth and yields the fullest possible benefit to the people being helped.

I'd like to see people, instead of spending so much time on the ethical problem, get after the problems that really affect the people of this country

Government has the responsibility to provide the climate in which Americans, all Americans, have an opportunity for good jobs; and not only for good jobs, but an opportunity if they have the ability and the desire, to be owners and managers, to have a piece of the action, because if they have a piece of the action, then they believe in the system rather than fighting against it.

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.

My concern today is not with the length of a person's hair but with his conduct.

When the death of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt thrust him suddenly into the Presidency in April of 1945 at one of the most critical moments of our history, he met that moment with courage and vision. His farsighted leadership in the postwar era has helped ever since to preserve peace and freedom in the world.

I made my mistakes, but in all of my years in public life, I have never profited, never profited from public serviceI have earned every cent. And in all of my years of public life, I have never obstructed justice. And I think, too, that I could say that in my years of public life, that I welcome this kind of examination, because people have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I am not a crook. I have earned everything I have got.

During the Prince's visit, King Timahoe will be referred to only as Timahoe, since it would be inappropriate for the Prince to be outranked by a dog.

The Congress, the Administration and the public all share a profound commitment to the rescue of our natural environment, and the preservation of the Earth as a place both habitable by and hospitable to man.