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
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
When I am the candidate, I run the campaign.
—Richard Nixon
Once one determines that he or she has a mission in life, that’s it’s not going to be accomplished without a great deal of pain, and that the rewards in the end may not outweigh the pain—if you recognize historically that always happens, then when it comes, you survive it.
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Survival
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: Communication, Cooperation
It is necessary for me to establish a winner image. Therefore, I have to beat somebody.
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Winning, Identity, Winners
It is not enough just to be for peace. The point is, what can we do about it?
—Richard Nixon
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
By taking this action, I hope that I will have hastened the start of the healing.
—Richard Nixon
Each moment in history is a fleeting time, precious and unique. But some stand out as moments of beginning, in which courses are set that shape decades or centuries.
—Richard Nixon
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
Nothing matters more to the future of this Nation than insuring that our young men and women learn to believe in themselves and believe in their dreams, and that they develop this capacitythat you develop this capacity, so that you keep it all of your lives. I believe one of Americas most priceless assets is the idealism which motivates the young people of America. My generation has invested all that it has, not only its love but its hope and faith, in yours.
—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
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
A man is not finished when he’s defeated; he’s finished when he quits.
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Perseverance
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
Finishing second in the Olympics gets you silver. Finishing second in politics gets you oblivion.
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Elections, Voting
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
The sky is no longer the limit.
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Space
The 1976 Bicentennial is not going to be invented in Washington, printed in triplicate by the Government Printing Office and mailed to you by the United States Postal Service
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Government
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
If you want to make beautiful music, you must play the black and the white notes together.
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Equality, Prejudice, Togetherness
A man who has never lost himself in a cause bigger than himself has missed one of life’s mountaintop experiences. Only in losing himself does he find himself. Only then does he discover all the latent strengths he never knew he had and which otherwise would have remained dormant.
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Reason
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
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 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.
—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
Reading not only enlarges and challenges the mind; it also engages and exercises the brain. Today’s youth who sits mesmerized by a television screen is not going to be tomorrow’s leader. Television watching is passive. Reading is active.
—Richard Nixon
Topics: Reading
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
Let us understand: North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that.
—Richard Nixon
Well, I’m not a crook.
—Richard Nixon
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