Quotes By Richard M. Nixon

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

I brought myself down. I impeached myself by resigning.

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.

I wish I could give you a lot of advice, based on my experience of winning political debates. But I don't have that experience. My only experience is at losing them.

The press is the enemy.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Tell them to send everything that can fly.

Solutions are not the answer.

It I talked about Watergate, I was described as struggling to free myself from the morass. If I did not talk about Watergate, I was accused of being out of touch with reality.

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

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

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.

I let the American people down.

I can take it. The tougher it gets, the cooler I get.

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.

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

There will be no whitewash in the White House.

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

President Johnson and I have a lot in common. We were both born in small towns and we're both fortunate in the fact that we think we married above ourselves.

The greatest honor history can bestow is that of peacemaker.

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

I have impeached myself by resigning.

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

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.