Richard Milhous Nixon (1913–94) was an American Republican-party political leader who served as the 37th president of the United States 1969–74. He became the first president to resign from office on account of his involvement in the Watergate scandal.
Nixon served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, a member of the U.S. Senate, and as vice president under Dwight Eisenhower before becoming president. His presidency is remembered for the reinstatement of diplomatic relations with China and the successful conclusion of the Vietnam War.
Nixon was re-elected for a second term in 1972, but soon got embroiled in a major political scandal. During his previous election campaign, what first appeared as a minor burglary at the Democratic-party national headquarters in Washington, D.C.’s Watergate apartment multiplex was linked to Nixon’s re-election campaign committee. Nixon resigned from his office but was pardoned a month later by his successor, Gerald Ford.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Richard Nixon
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 Nixon
Topics: Difficulty, Difficulties
Why would anyone want to be President today? The answer is not one of glory, or fame; today the burdens of the office outweigh its privileges. Its not because the Presidency offers a chance to be somebody, but because it offers a chance to do something.
—Richard Nixon
To a crisis of the spirit, we need an answer of the spirit.
To find that answer, we need only look within ourselves.
When we listen to the better angels of our nature, we find that they celebrate the simple things, the basic things—such as goodness, decency, love, kindness.
Greatness comes in simple trappings.
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Greatness & Great Things
We must maintain the integrity of the White House, and that integrity must be real, not transparent. There can be no whitewash at the White House.
—Richard Nixon
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 Nixon
Topics: Truth
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.
—Richard Nixon
When I am the candidate, I run the campaign.
—Richard Nixon
I can see clearly now … that I was wrong in not acting more decisively and more forthrightly in dealing with Watergate…
—Richard Nixon
The war against Vietnam is only the ghastliest manifestation of what I’d call imperial provincialism, which afflicts America’s whole culture – aware only of its own history, insensible to everything which isn’t part of the local atmosphere.
—Richard Nixon
The one thing sure about politics is that what goes up comes down and what goes down often comes up.
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Politics
Once you get into this great stream of history you can’t get out. You can drown. Or you can be pulled ashore by the tide. But it is awfully hard to get out when you are in the middle of the stream—if it is intended that you stay there.
—Richard Nixon
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 Nixon
Topics: Challenges, Hate, Hatred
I have impeached myself by resigning.
—Richard Nixon
Let us move from the era of confrontation to the era of negotiation.
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Conflict
In our own lives, let each of us asknot just what government will do for me, but what can I do for myself?
—Richard Nixon
I can take it… The tougher it gets, the cooler I get…
—Richard Nixon
Finishing second in the Olympics gets you silver. Finishing second in politics gets you oblivion.
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Elections, Voting
I believe in the battle – whether it’s the battle of a campaign or the battle of this office, which is a continuing battle.
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Battle
Our idea is to create a situation in which those lands to which we have obligations or in which we have interests, if they are ready to fight a fire, should be able to count on us to furnish the hose and water.
—Richard Nixon
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.
—Richard Nixon
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 Nixon
Topics: Public
There are these and other great causes that we were elected overwhelmingly to carry forward in November of 1972. And what we were elected to do, we are going to do, and let others wallow in Watergate, we are going to do our job.
—Richard Nixon
When the president does it, that means it is not illegal.
—Richard Nixon
If you think the United States has stood still, who built The largest shopping center in the world?
—Richard Nixon
Topics: America
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 Nixon
Topics: Leadership, Leaders
I would rather be a one-term President and do what I believe is right than to be a two-term President at the cost of seeing America become a second-race power and to see this Nation accept the first defeat in its proud 190-year history.
—Richard Nixon
The public lands represent in a sense, the breathing space of the nation.
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Wilderness
I am not a crook.
—Richard Nixon
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 Nixon
Topics: Cooperation, Communication
The sky is no longer the limit.
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Space
I often thought that if there had been a good rap group around in those days, I might have chosen a career in music instead of politics.
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Music
The peace we seek to win is not victory over any other people, but the peace that comes with healing in its wings; with compassion for those who have suffered; with understanding for those who have opposed us; with the opportunity for all the people of this earth to choose their own destiny”.
—Richard Nixon
I concede!
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Success & Failure
Well, I’m not a crook.
—Richard Nixon
It is necessary for me to establish a winner image. Therefore, I have to beat somebody.
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Winning, Winners, Identity
A man is not finished when he’s defeated; he’s finished when he quits.
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Perseverance
The greatest honor history can bestow is that of peacemaker.
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Peace
Any change is resisted because bureaucrats have a vested interest in the chaos in which they exist.
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Bureaucracy, Change
People react to fear, not love—they don’t teach that in Sunday School, but it’s true.
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Fear
To make it possible for our children, and for our childrens children, to live in a world of peace. To make this country be more than ever a land of opportunityof equal opportunity, full opportunity for every American. To provide jobs for all who can work, and generous help for those who cannot work. To establish a climate of decency and civility, in which each person respects the feelings and the dignity and the God-given rights of his neighbor. To make this a land in which each person can dare to dream, can live his dreamsnot in fear, but in hopeproud of his community, proud of his country, proud of what America has meant to himself and to the world.
—Richard Nixon
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