Richard M. Nixon Quotes | GloryQuotes

Richard M. Nixon Quotes About History

No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now.

Richard M. Nixon

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

Richard M. Nixon

The greatest honor history can bestow is that of peacemaker.

Richard M. Nixon

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 M. Nixon

In the long term we can hope that religion will change the nature of man and reduce conflict. But history is not encouraging in this respect. The bloodiest wars in history have been religious wars.

Richard M. 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 M. Nixon

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.

Richard M. Nixon

Richard M. Nixon Quotes About War

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 M. Nixon

The Cold War isn't thawing; it is burning with a deadly heat. Communism isn't sleeping; it is, as always, plotting, scheming, working, fighting.

Richard M. Nixon

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.

Richard M. Nixon

More Quotes by Richard M. Nixon

If you think the United States has stood still, who built the largest shopping center in the world?

Richard M. Nixon

People react to fear, not love; they don't teach that in Sunday School, but it's true.

Richard M. Nixon

If we take the route of the permanent handout, the American character will itself be impoverished.

Richard M. 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 M. Nixon

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

Richard M. Nixon

If you want to make beautiful music, you must play the black and the white notes together.

Richard M. Nixon

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

Richard M. Nixon

Politics would be a helluva good business if it weren't for the goddamned people.

Richard M. Nixon

Finishing second in the Olympics gets you silver. Finishing second in politics gets you oblivion.

Richard M. Nixon

I can see clearly now... that I was wrong in not acting more decisively and more forthrightly in dealing with Watergate.

Richard M. Nixon

Unless a president can protect the privacy of the advice he gets, he cannot get the advice he needs.

Richard M. Nixon

Any lady who is first lady likes being first lady. I don't care what they say, they like it.

Richard M. Nixon

Tonight - to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans - I ask for your support.

Richard M. Nixon

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

Richard M. Nixon

The American people are entitled to see the president and to hear his views directly, and not to see him only through the press.

Richard M. 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 M. Nixon

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

Richard M. Nixon

If you take no risks, you will suffer no defeats. But if you take no risks, you win no victories.

Richard M. Nixon

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

Richard M. Nixon

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

Richard M. Nixon

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.

Richard M. Nixon

Always remember that others may hate you but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.

Richard M. Nixon

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

Richard M. Nixon

Don't get the impression that you arouse my anger. You see, one can only be angry with those he respects.

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.

Richard M. Nixon

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

Richard M. Nixon

I reject the cynical view that politics is a dirty business.

Richard M. Nixon

It is necessary for me to establish a winner image. Therefore, I have to beat somebody.

Richard M. Nixon

We do not learn by inference and deduction and the application of mathematics to philosophy, but by direct intercourse and sympathy.

Richard M. Nixon

A man is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.

Richard M. Nixon

The mark of a true politician is that he is never at a loss for words because he is always half-expecting to be asked to make a speech.

Richard M. Nixon

Only if you have been in the deepest valley, can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.

Richard M. Nixon

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 M. Nixon

I don't know anything that builds the will to win better than competitive sports.

Richard M. Nixon

The presidency has many problems, but boredom is the least of them.

Richard M. Nixon

It's a piece of cake until you get to the top. You find you can't stop playing the game the way you've always played it.

Richard M. Nixon

My concern today is not with the length of a person's hair but with his conduct.

Richard M. Nixon

Our chief justices have probably had more profound and lasting influence on their times and on the direction of the nation than most presidents.

Richard M. Nixon

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

Richard M. Nixon

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

Richard M. Nixon

Certainly in the next 50 years we shall see a woman president, perhaps sooner than you think. A woman can and should be able to do any political job that a man can do.

Richard M. Nixon

We must always remember that America is a great nation today not because of what government did for people but because of what people did for themselves and for one another.

Richard M. Nixon

Let us move from the era of confrontation to the era of negotiation.

Richard M. Nixon

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.

Richard M. 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 M. Nixon

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

Richard M. Nixon

The man who is aware of himself is henceforward independent; and he is never bored, and life is only too short, and he is steeped through and through with a profound yet temperate happiness.

Richard M. Nixon

If I were to make public these tapes, containing blunt and candid remarks on many different subjects, the confidentiality of the office of the president would always be suspect.

Richard M. Nixon

Browse 91 quotes attributed to Richard M. Nixon, listed in the source data as a American President, organized around themes such as History, War, Work. Use the topic links to explore similar quotes, or browse the full author collection in one place.