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

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

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 Quote

Any change is resisted because bureaucrats have a vested interest in the chaos in which they exist.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

Any lady who is first lady likes being first lady. I don't care what they say, they like it.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

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.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

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.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

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.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

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 Quote

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

Finishing second in the Olympics gets you silver. Finishing second in politics gets you oblivion.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

I am not a crook.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

I brought myself down. I impeached myself by resigning.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

I can see clearly now... that I was wrong in not acting more decisively and more forthrightly in dealing with Watergate.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

I can take it. The tougher it gets, the cooler I get.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

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.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

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 Quote

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.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

I let the American people down.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

I reject the cynical view that politics is a dirty business.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

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 Quote

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

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.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

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.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

If we take the route of the permanent handout, the American character will itself be impoverished.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

If you take no risks, you will suffer no defeats. But if you take no risks, you win no victories.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

If you want to make beautiful music, you must play the black and the white notes together.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

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 Quote

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.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

It is necessary for me to establish a winner image. Therefore, I have to beat somebody.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

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.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

Let us move from the era of confrontation to the era of negotiation.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

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.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

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.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

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.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

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.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

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

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

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

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.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

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

Politics would be a helluva good business if it weren't for the goddamned people.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

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.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

Scrubbing floors and emptying bedpans has as much dignity as the Presidency.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

Sure there are dishonest men in local government. But there are dishonest men in national government too.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

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

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.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

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.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

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.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

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.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

The presidency has many problems, but boredom is the least of them.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

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.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

There can be no whitewash at the White House.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

Those who hate you don't win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

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

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.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

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.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

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.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

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.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

Well, I screwed it up real good, didn't I?
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

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.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

When the President does it, that means that it's not illegal.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

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.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

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.
- Richard M. Nixon Quote

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