Top 100 Richard M Nixon Quotes
#2. Richard M. Nixon honestly believed in his bones that an organized conspiracy of liberal media insiders had literally been plotting against him ever since he broke Alger Hiss in 1948 (he never shifted course, and lost his soul).
Rick Perlstein
#3. [On Richard M. Nixon:] Americans began with a president who couldn't tell a lie and now they have one who can't tell the truth.
Benazir Bhutto
#4. Mr. Ford's decision to pardon Richard M. Nixon for any crimes he might have been charged with because of Watergate is seen by many historians as the central event of his 896-day presidency.
Scott Shane
#5. When Richard M. Nixon resigned and Ford became the 38th president of the United States, the Watergate Special Prosecutor's Office, of which I was a member, was preparing for the criminal trials of Nixon's top aides - H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman and John Mitchell.
Richard Ben-Veniste
#7. I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant. - Richard M. Nixon
Terry J. Fadem
#8. Mrs. Nixon and I share the sorrow of millions of Americans at the death of Louis Armstrong. One of the architects of an American art form, a free and individual spirit, and an artist of worldwide fame, his great talents and magnificent spirit added richness and pleasure to all our lives.
Richard M. Nixon
#9. The greatest honor history can bestow is that of peacemaker.
Richard M. Nixon
#11. I'm not going to be the first American president to lose a war.
Richard M. Nixon
#12. It's long been common practice among many to draw a distinction between "human rights" and "property rights," suggesting that the two are separate and unequal - with "property rights" second to "human rights."
Richard M. Nixon
#13. I know you think you believe you understand what you thought I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is exactly what I meant.
Richard M. Nixon
#14. The true idealist pursues what his heart says is right in a way that his head says will work.
Richard M. Nixon
#16. Defeat doesn't finish a man, quit does. A man is not finished when he's defeated. He's finished when he quits.
Richard M. Nixon
#17. It is necessary for me to establish a winner image. Therefore, I have to beat somebody.
Richard M. Nixon
#18. In the television age, the key distinction is between the candidate who can speak poetry and the one who can only speak prose.
Richard M. Nixon
#21. I'm old enough to remember Richard Nixon. They called it the imperial presidency when he was refusing to spend money that Congress had appropriated.
Angus King
#22. Let us remember that the main purpose of American aid is not to help other nations, but to help ourselves.
Richard M. Nixon
#23. Nations not possessing great power can indulge in the luxury of
criticism of others; those possessing it have the responsibility of
decision. Faced with a clear challenge, the decision not to use
one's power must be as deliberate as the decision to use it. The con
Richard M. Nixon
#24. Economic power is not the same as strength of national character. Our country may be rich in goods, but we are poor in spirit.
Richard M. Nixon
#25. So you are lean and mean and resourceful and you continue to walk on the edge of the precipice because over the years you have become fascinated by how close you can walk without losing your balance.
Richard M. Nixon
#26. Communism starts with the proposition that there are no universal truths or general truths of human nature.
Richard M. Nixon
#27. I have earned every cent. And in all of my years of public life I have never obstructed justice,
Richard M. Nixon
#28. A riot is a spontaneous outburst. A war is subject to advance planning.
Richard M. Nixon
#29. You've got to learn to survive a defeat. That's when you develop character.
Richard M. Nixon
#30. In ancient days, men looked at stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men (and women) of flesh and blood.
Richard M. Nixon
#31. I'll speak for the man, or against him, whichever will do him the most good.
Richard M. Nixon
#33. 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.
Richard M. Nixon
#34. To the ordinary guy, all this is a bunch of gobbledygook. But out of the gobbledygook comes a very clear thing: you can't trust the government, you can't believe what they say, and you can't rely on their judgment.
Richard M. Nixon
#35. Don't get the impression that you arouse my anger. You see, one can only be angry with those he respects.
Richard M. Nixon
#36. Make sure you pay your taxes; otherwise you can get in a lot of trouble.
Richard M. Nixon
#37. 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.
Richard M. Nixon
#38. People react to fear, not love; they don't teach that in Sunday School, but it's true.
Richard M. Nixon
#41. The communists have lost the cold war, but the west has not yet won it.
Richard M. Nixon
#42. 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.
Richard M. Nixon
#43. But also out here in this dreary, difficult war, I think history will record that this may have been one of Americas finest hours, because we took a difficult task and we succeeded.
Richard M. Nixon
#44. Until he has been part of a cause larger than himself, no man is truly whole.
Richard M. Nixon
#45. Federal and state laws (should) be changed to no longer make it a crime to possess marijuana for private use.
Richard M. Nixon
#46. 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.
Richard M. Nixon
#47. Our souls speak from across the miles, intertwined, you and I.
Richard M. Nixon
#48. 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.
Richard M. Nixon
#49. Capitalism works better than it sounds, while socialism sounds better than it works.
Richard M. Nixon
#50. I've never left a game before it ended. You never know when there could be a big turnaround in the game.
Richard M. Nixon
#51. What we have done with the American Indian is its way as bad as what we imposed on the Negroes. We took a proud and independent race and virtually destroyed them. We have to find ways to bring them back into decent lives in this country.
Richard M. Nixon
#53. The language of politics is poetry, not prose. Jackson is poetry. Cuomo is poetry. Dukakis is a word processor.
Richard M. Nixon
#54. 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.
Richard M. Nixon
#55. I doubt if any of them would even intentionally double-park.
Richard M. Nixon
#56. Reading not only enlarges and challenges the mind; it also engages and exercises the brain. Today's youth who sits mesmerized by a television screen is not going to be tomorrow's leader. Television watching is passive. Reading is active.
Richard M. Nixon
#57. I learned that the people who have the cards are usually the ones who talk the least and the softest; those who are bluffing tend to talk loudly and give themselves away.
Richard M. Nixon
#58. Let me just say this, and I want to say this to the televison audience: I made my mistakes, but in all of my years of public life, I have never profited, never profited from public service
Richard M. Nixon
#59. The Pakistanis are straightforward and sometimes extremely stupid. The Indians are more devious, sometimes so smart that we fall for their line.
Richard M. Nixon
#60. For among nations - as within nations - the soundest unity is that which respects diversity, and the strongest cohesion is that which rejects coercion.
Richard M. Nixon
#61. Because there are no local or State boundaries to the problems of our environment, the Federal Government must play an active, positive role. We can and will set standards. We can and will exercise leadership.
Richard M. Nixon
#62. The only place you and I disagree is with regard to the bombing. You're so goddamned concerned about the civilians, and I (in contrast) don't give a damn. I don't care." ... "I'd rather use the nuclear bomb ... Does that bother you? I just want you to think big.
Richard M. Nixon
#64. Maybe New York shouldn't survive. Maybe it should go through a cycle of destruction.
Richard M. Nixon
#65. 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.
Richard M. Nixon
#66. 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.
Richard M. Nixon
#67. 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.
Richard M. Nixon
#69. The jawbone of an ass is just as dangerous a weapon today as in Sampson's time.
Richard M. Nixon
#70. It is not enough just to be for peace. The point is, what can we do about it?
Richard M. Nixon
#71. The Jews are just a very aggressive and abrasive and obnoxious personality.
Richard M. Nixon
#72. Always give your best. Never get discouraged. Never be petty.
Richard M. Nixon
#73. You have my assurance that we will respond with full force should the settlement be violated by North Vietnam.
Richard M. Nixon
#74. In our own lives, let each of us asknot just what government will do for me, but what can I do for myself?
Richard M. Nixon
#75. Law enforcement officers should use only the minimum force necessary in dealing with disorders when they arise. A human life-the life of a student, soldier, or police officer-is a precious thing, and the taking of a life can be justified only as a necessary and last resort.
Richard M. Nixon
#76. Black Americans, no more than white Americans, they do not want more government programs which perpetuate dependency. They don't want to be a colony in a nation.
Richard M. Nixon
#77. Fate has ordained that the men who went to the Moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace. These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin [Buzz] Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice.
Richard M. Nixon
#78. 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.
Richard M. Nixon
#79. If I had feelings, I probably wouldn't have even survived.
Richard M. Nixon
#81. What are our schools for if not indoctrination against Communism?
Richard M. Nixon
#82. Yet we can maintain a free society only if we recognize that in a free society no one can win all the time. No one can have his own way all the time, and no one is right all the time.
Richard M. Nixon
#83. There are some instances where you may be ahead of us, for example, in the development of the thrust of your rockets for the investigation of outer space; there may be some instances in which we are ahead of you
in color television, for instance.
Richard M. Nixon
#84. I believe in the battle-whether it's the battle of a campaign or the battle of this office, which is a continuing battle.
Richard M. Nixon
#85. 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.
Richard M. Nixon
#86. Before we become too arrogant with the most deadly of the seven deadly sins, the sin of pride, let us remember that the two great wars of this century, wars which cost twenty million dead, were fought between Christian nations praying to the same God.
Richard M. Nixon
#87. You can't depend on the man who made the mess to clean it up.
Richard M. Nixon
#88. For years politicians have promised the Moon. I'm the first one to be able to deliver it.
Richard M. Nixon
#89. As long as I'm sitting in the chair, there's not going to be any Jew appointed to that court. [No Jew] can be right on the criminal-law issue.
Richard M. Nixon
#90. I really believe life is simple. It's all the other people that make things complicated.
Richard M. Nixon
#91. Castro couldn't even go to the bathroom unless the Soviet Union put the nickel in the toilet.
Richard M. Nixon
#93. The presidency has many problems, but boredom is the least of them.
Richard M. Nixon
#94. 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.
Richard M. Nixon
#95. Let us move from the era of confrontation to the era of negotiation.
Richard M. Nixon
#96. If an individual wants to be a leader and isn't controversial, that means he never stood for anything.
Richard M. Nixon
#97. I'm not at liberty to discuss the governments knowledge of extraterrestrial UFO's at this time. I am still personally being briefed on the subject!
Richard M. Nixon
#98. 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.
Richard M. Nixon
#100. I got into a few games after they were hopelessly won or hopelessly lost, you know, when they put the substitutes in, and finally the water boy, and then me. That is the way it worked.
Richard M. Nixon
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