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
By taking this action, I hope that I will have hastened the start of the healing.
—Richard Nixon
When I am the candidate, I run the campaign.
—Richard Nixon
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
So you are lean and mean and resourceful and you continue to walk on the edge of the precipice because over the years you have become fascinated by how close you can walk without losing your balance.
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Self-Discovery
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
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
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
But above all, what this Congress can be remembered for is opening the way to a new American revolutiona peaceful revolution in which power was turned back to the peoplein which government at all levels was refreshed and renewed and made truly responsive. This can be a revolution as profound, as far-reaching, as exciting as that first revolution almost 200 years agoand it can mean that just 5 years from now America will enter its third century as a young nation new in spirit, with all the vigor and the freshness with which it began its first century.
—Richard Nixon
If you think the United States has stood still, who built The largest shopping center in the world?
—Richard Nixon
Topics: America
No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now.
—Richard Nixon
The easiest period in a crisis situation is actually the battle itself. The most difficult is the period of indecision—whether to fight or run away. And the most dangerous period is the aftermath. It is then, with all his resources spent and his guard down, that an individual must watch out for dulled reactions and faulty judgment.
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Difficulty
Because of what you have done the heavens have become a part of man’s world. And as you talk to us from the Sea of Tranquillity, it inspires us to redouble our efforts to bring peace and Tranquillity to Earth. For one priceless moment, in the whole history of man, all the people on this Earth are truly one. One in their pride in what you have done. One in our prayers that you will return safely to Earth.
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Unity
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
I can see clearly now … that I was wrong in not acting more decisively and more forthrightly in dealing with Watergate…
—Richard Nixon
Let us understand: North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that.
—Richard Nixon
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.
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Negotiation, Business
We are all in it together. This is a war. We take a few shots and it will be over. We will give them a few shots and it will be over.
—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
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
I am not a crook.
—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
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
Nobody is a friend of ours. Let’s face it.
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Politics, Politicians
Only if you have been in the deepest valley, can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Failure
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
Let us move from the era of confrontation to the era of negotiation.
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Conflict
The average American is just like the child in the family. You give him some responsibility and he is going to amount to something. He is going to do something. If, on the other hand, you make him completely dependent and pamper him and cater to him too much, you are going to make him soft, spoiled and eventually a very weak individual.
—Richard Nixon
Defeat doesn’t finish a man—quit does. A man is not finished when he’s defeated. He’s finished when he quits.
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Failure, Defeat
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
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
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