Richard M. Nixon

I'm glad I'm not Brezhnev. Being the Russian leader in the Kremlin. You never know if someone's tape recording what you say.

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.

People react to fear, not love; they don't teach that in Sunday School, but it's true.

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.

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

There will be no whitewash in the White House.

Once one determines that he or she has a mission in life, that's it's not going to be accomplished without a great deal of pain, and that the rewards in the end may not outweigh the pain --if you recognize historically that always happens, then when it comes, you survive it.

If you think the United States has stood still, who built the largest shopping center in the world?

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.

Any change is resisted because bureaucrats have a vested interest in the chaos in which they exist.

Defeat doesnt finish a man quit does. A man is not finished when hes defeated. Hes finished when he quits.

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

Government can provide opportunity. But opportunity means nothing unless people are prepared to seize it.

Life isn't meant to be easy. It's hard to take being on the top - or on the bottom. I guess I'm something of a fatalist. You have to have a sense of history, I think, to survive some of these things... Life is one crisis after another.

I brought myself down. I impeached myself by resigning.

If I were to make public these tapes, containing blunt and candid remarks on many different subjects, the confidentiality of the office of the president would always be suspect.

A president can ask for reconciliation in the racial conflict that divides Americans. But reconciliation comes only from the hearts of people.

Unless a president can protect the privacy of the advice he gets, he cannot get the advice he needs.

It's a piece of cake until you get to the top. You find you can't stop playing the game the way you've always played it.

Only if you have been in the deepest valley, can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.

The man who is aware of himself is henceforward independent; and he is never bored, and life is only too short, and he is steeped through and through with a profound yet temperate happiness.

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

I have never been a quitter. To leave office before my term is completed is opposed to every instinct in my body. But as president I must put the interests of America first Therefore, I shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow.

The more you stay in this kind of job, the more you realize that a public figure, a major public figure, is a lonely man.

The press is the enemy.

Scrubbing floors and emptying bedpans has as much dignity as the Presidency.

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

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've analyzed the best I can... and I have not found an impeachable offense, and therefore resignation is not an acceptable course.

The true idealist pursues what his heart says is right in a way that his head says will work.

Defeat doesn't finish a man, quit does. A man is not finished when he's defeated. He's finished when he quits.

Solutions are not the answer.

I reject the cynical view that politics is a dirty business.

The American people are entitled to see the president and to hear his views directly, and not to see him only through the press.

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.

What starts the process, really, are laughs and slights and snubs when you are a kid. If your anger is deep enough and strong enough, you learn that you can change those attitudes by excellence, personal gut performance.

I've never canceled a subscription to a newspaper because of bad cartoons or editorials. If that were the case, I wouldn't have any newspapers or magazines to read.

I don't think that a leader can control, to any great extent, his destiny. Very seldom can he step in and change the situation if the forces of history are running in another direction.

I have impeached myself by resigning.

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.

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.

We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another - until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our voices.

As this long and difficult war ends, I would like to address a few special words to the American people: Your steadfastness in supporting our insistence on peace with honor has made peace with honor possible.

We must always remember that America is a great nation today not because of what government did for people but because of what people did for themselves and for one another.

Under the doctrine of separation of powers, the manner in which the president personally exercises his assigned executive powers is not subject to questioning by another branch of government.

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

Tonight - to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans - I ask for your support.

I believe in the battle-whether it's the battle of a campaign or the battle of this office, which is a continuing battle.

Always remember that others may hate you but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.

The greatest honor history can bestow is that of peacemaker.

Any lady who is first lady likes being first lady. I don't care what they say, they like it.

Once you get into this great stream of history, you can't get out.

Those who hate you don't win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.

You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.

Watergate had become the center of the media's universe, and during the remaining year of my presidency the media tried to force everything else to revolve around it.

A public man must never forget that he loses his usefulness when he as an individual, rather than his policy, becomes the issue.

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

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

Idealism without realism is impotent. Realism without idealism is immoral.

You must pursue this investigation of Watergate even if it leads to the president. I'm innocent. You've got to believe I'm innocent. If you don't, take my job.

The time has come for us to draw the line. The time has come for the responsible leaders of both political parties to take a stand against overgrown Government and for the American taxpayer.

We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another, until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our voices.

Never say no when a client asks for something, even if it is the moon. You can always try, and anyhow there is plenty of time afterwards to explain that it was not possible.

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.

People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook. I earned everything I've got.

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.

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

I played by the rules of politics as I found them.

I can take it. The tougher it gets, the cooler I get.

Its a piece of cake until you get to the top. You find you cant stop playing the game the way youve always played it.

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.

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.

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

The mark of a true politician is that he is never at a loss for words because he is always half-expecting to be asked to make a speech.

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

I let the American people down.

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

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.

It I talked about Watergate, I was described as struggling to free myself from the morass. If I did not talk about Watergate, I was accused of being out of touch with reality.

I am not a crook.

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

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

You've got to learn to survive a defeat. That's when you develop character.

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.

A man is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.

By the time you get dressed, drive out there, play 18 holes and come home, you've blown seven hours. There are better things you can do with your time.

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.

When information which properly belongs to the public is systematically withheld by those in power, the people soon become ignorant of their own affairs, distrustful of those who manage them, and -- eventually -- incapable of determining their own destinies.

The finest steel has to go through the hottest fire.

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

The Cold War isn't thawing; it is burning with a deadly heat. Communism isn't sleeping; it is, as always, plotting, scheming, working, fighting.

It is necessary for me to establish a winner image. Therefore, I have to beat somebody.

My strong point, if I have a strong point, is performance. I always do more than I say. I always produce more than I promise.

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.

Voters quickly forget what a man says.

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

Our chief justices have probably had more profound and lasting influence on their times and on the direction of the nation than most presidents.

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.

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