Quotes By Richard M. Nixon

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

I am not a crook.

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.

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

The finest steel has to go through the hottest fire.

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

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

Well, I screwed it up real good, didn't I?

I brought myself down. I 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.

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.

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.

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