Quotes By Richard M. Nixon

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

Voters quickly forget what a man says.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

The greatest honor history can bestow is that of peacemaker.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.