Richard M. Nixon quotes:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

At home, we must reject the mistaken notion - a notion that has dominated too much of the public dialogue for too long - that ever bigger Government is the answer to every problem.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

The press is the enemy.

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.

Let us build bridges, my friends, build bridges to human dignity across that gulf that separates black America from white America.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

I'm not going to be the first American president to lose a war.

My telephone calls and meetings and decisions were now parts of a prescribed ritual aimed at making peace with the past; his calls, his meetings and his decisions were already the ones that would shape America's future." (On transfer of power to Gerald R Ford)

The recent upsurge of public concern over environmental questions reflects a belated recognition that man has been too cavalier in his relations with nature. Unless we arrest the depredations that have been inflicted so carelessly on our natural systems-which exist in an intricate set of balances-we face the prospect of ecological disaster.

I refuse to make a decision that somebody else can make. The first rule of leadership is to save yourself for the big decision. Don't allow your mind to become cluttered.

Never forget, the press is the enemy. The establishment is the enemy. The professors are the enemy. Professors are the enemy. Write that on a blackboard 100 times and never forget it.

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.

The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word "crisis." One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity.

I believe in building bridges, but we should only build our end of the bridge.

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 Jewish cabal is out to get me.

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.

Where the hell is Chad?

It is in that spirit, the spirit of '76, that I ask you to rise and join me in a toast to Chairman Mao, to Premier Chou, to the people of our two countries, and to the hope of our children that peace and harmony can be the legacy of our generation to theirs.

My strong point is not rhetoric , it isn't showmanship, it isn't big promises - those things that create the glamour and the excitement that people call charisma and warmth.

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

If, when the chips are down, the worlds most powerful nation, the United States of America, acts like a pitiful, helpless giant, the forces of totalitarianism and anarchy will threaten free nations and free institutions throughout the world.

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

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

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

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

Well, I'm not a crook.

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.

Always give your best. Never get discouraged. Never be petty.

I also believe that academic freedom should protect the right of a professor or student to advocate Marxism, socialism, communism, or any other minority viewpoint - no matter how distasteful to the majority, provided...

I don't give a damn about the civilians.

A man who has never lost himself in a cause bigger than himself has missed one of life's mountaintop experiences. Only in losing himself does he find himself. Only then does he discover all the latent strengths he never knew he had and which otherwise would have remained dormant.

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

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.

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.

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.

Idealism without pragmatism is impotent. Pragmatism without idealism is meaningless. The key to effective leadership is pragmatic idealism.

We must adopt reforms which will expand the range of opportunities for all Americans. We can fulfill the American dream only when each person has a fair chance to fulfill his own dreams. This means equal voting rights, equal employment opportunity and new opportunities for expanded ownership, because in order to be secure in their human rights, people need access to property rights.

There is an international disease which feeds on the notion that if you have a cause to defend, you can use any means to further your cause, since the end justifies the means. As an international community, we must oppose this notion, whether it be in Canada, in the United States, or anywhere else. No cause justifies violence as long as the system provides for change by peaceful means.

In a flat choice between smoke and jobs, we're for jobs... But just keep me out of trouble on environmental issues.

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.

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!

The finest steel has to go through the hottest fire.

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.

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

Each moment in history is a fleeting time, precious and unique. But some stand out as moments of beginning, in which courses are set that shape decades or centuries.

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.

Baseball without fans is like Jayne Mansfield without a sweater. Hang on, that can be taken two ways.

In his heart everyone knows that the only people who get rich from the "get rich quick" books are those who write them.

But it's not just the ratty part of town. The upper class in San Francisco is that way. The Bohemian Grove, which I attend from time to time . . . It is the most faggy goddamned thing you could ever imagine with that San Francisco crowd. I can't shake hands with anybody from San Francisco.

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.

If we take the route of the permanent handout, the American character will itself be impoverished.

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

What are our schools for if not indoctrination against Communism?

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

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.

History is a pathetic junkyard of broken treaties.

I want a Goddamn strong statement on marijuana, I mean one that just tears the ass out of them. You know, its a funny thing, every one of the bastards that are out for legalizing marijuana is Jewish.

I really believe life is simple. It's all the other people that make things complicated.

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.

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

I was under medication when I made the decision to burn the tapes.

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.

Once one determines that he or she has a mission in life, that's it's not...

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

Nothing is more priceless and more worthy of preservation than the rich array of animal life with which our country has been blessed. It is a many-faceted treasure, of value to scholars, scientists, and nature lovers alike, and it forms a vital part of the heritage we all share as Americans.

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.

The 1970s must be the years when America pays its debt to the past by reclaiming the purity of its air, its waters, and our living environment. It is literally now or never.

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.

...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.

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

To me, the most unhappy people in the world are the people ... in Palm Beach- Going to parties every night. Playing golf every afternoon, then bridge. [They have] no purpose.

Peace is a great goal, but it is not a panacea. Neither is material wealth.

The greatest honor history can bestow is that of peacemaker.

I had never expected that the China initiative would come to fruition in the form of a Ping-Pong team.