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
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
I seriously doubt if we will ever have another war. This is probably the very last one.
—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
The one thing sure about politics is that what goes up comes down and what goes down often comes up.
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Politics
Let historians not record that when America was the most powerful nation in the world we passed on the other side of the road and allowed the last hopes for peace and freedom of millions of people to be suffocated by the forces of totalitarianism. And so tonight to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans I ask for your support.
—Richard Nixon
For its part, Government will listen. We will strive to listen in new ways—to the voices of quiet anguish, to voices that speak without words, the voices of the heart, to the injured voices, and the anxious voices, and the voices that have despaired of being heard.
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Government
Yet we can maintain a free society only if we recognize that in a free society no one can win all the time. No one can have his own way all the time, and no one is right all the time.
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Freedom
The sky is no longer the limit.
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Space
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
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Government
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
People react to fear, not love—they don’t teach that in Sunday School, but it’s true.
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Fear
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
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Golf
The greatest honor history can bestow is that of peacemaker.
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Peace
I played by the rules of politics as I found them.
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Politicians, Politics
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
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: Business, Negotiation
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.
—Richard Nixon
I have impeached myself by resigning.
—Richard Nixon
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
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
The antiwar movement is a wild orgasm of anarchists sweeping across the country like a prairie fire
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Government
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
By taking this action, I hope that I will have hastened the start of the healing.
—Richard Nixon
A man is not finished when he’s defeated; he’s finished when he quits.
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Perseverance
I was under medication when I made the decision not to burn the tapes.
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Medicine
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
Solutions are not the answer.
—Richard Nixon
Sure there are dishonest men in local government. But there are dishonest men in national government too.
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Government
You’ve got to learn to survive a defeat. That’s when you develop character.
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Defeat
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Lyndon B. Johnson American Head of State
- Herbert Hoover American Statesman
- Hubert Humphrey American Head of State
- John F. Kennedy American Head of State
- Ronald Reagan American Head of State
- Charles G. Dawes American Diplomat, Politician
- Theodore Roosevelt American Head of State
- George H. W. Bush American Head of State
- Calvin Coolidge American Head of State
- Jimmy Carter American Head of State
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