Best 331 quotes of Richard M. Nixon on MyQuotes

When information which properly belongs to the public is systematically withheld by those in power, the people soon become ignorant of their own affairs, distrustful of those who manage them, and -- eventually -- incapable of determining their own destinies.

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.

When I spoke at the St. Lawrence Seaway ceremonies in 1969, I borrowed some words from the monument there which I had joined Queen Elizabeth in dedicating just 10 years before. That monument, as its inscription puts it, 'bears witness to the common purpose of two nations whose frontiers are the frontiers of friendship, whose ways are the ways of freedom, whose works are the works of peace'.

When the death of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt thrust him suddenly into the Presidency in April of 1945 at one of the most critical moments of our history, he met that moment with courage and vision. His farsighted leadership in the postwar era has helped ever since to preserve peace and freedom in the world.

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

When the strongest nation in the world can be tied up for years in a war with no end in sight, when the richest nation in the world can't manage its own economy, when the nation with the greatest tradition of the rule of law is plagued by unprecedented lawlessness, and when the President of the United States cannot travel abroad or to any major city at home without fear of a hostile demonstration - then it's time for new leadership for the United States of America.

Where the hell is Chad?

While technically I did not commit a crime, an impeachable offense... these are legalisms, as far as the handling of this matter is concerned; it was so botched up, I made so many bad judgments. The worst ones, mistakes of the heart, rather than the head. But let me say, a man in that top job - he's got to have a heart, but his head must always rule his heart.

Why would anyone want to be President today? The answer is not one of glory, or fame; today the burdens of the office outweigh its privileges. Its not because the Presidency offers a chance to be somebody, but because it offers a chance to do something.

With all our differences, whenever we are confronted with a threat to our security we are not then Republicans or Democrats but Americans; we are not then the fifty states but the United States.

With all the power that a president has, the most important thing to bear in mind is this: You must not give power to a man unless, above everything else, he has character. Character is the most important qualification the president of the United States can have.

With those who are willing to join, let us cooperate to reduce the burden of arms, to strengthen the structure of peace, to lift up the poor and the hungry.

Yes, I wish I'd done it sooner.

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.

You cannot win a battle in any arena merely by defending yourself.

You can't depend on the man who made the mess to clean it up.

You don't know how to lie. If you can't lie, you'll never go anywhere.

You find out who your true friends are not when you are on top of the world, but when the world is on top of you.

You have my assurance that we will respond with full force should the settlement be violated by North Vietnam.

You have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizes this all while not appearing to.

You know very well that whether you are on page one or page thirty depends on whether they fear you. It's as simple as that.

You must never be satisfied with losing. You must get angry, terribly angry, about losing. But the mark of the good loser is that he takes his anger out on himself and not his victorious opponents or on his teammates.

You must never give up. You must remember that you have to take risks in order to achieve anything and sometimes you will suffer defeat. But the mark of any individual is to recover from defeat and disappointment and go on and give it his best shot.

You must pursue this investigation of Watergate even if it leads to the president. I'm innocent. You've got to believe I'm innocent. If you don't, take my job.

Your mind must always go, even while you're shaking hands and going through all the maneuvers. I developed the ability long ago to do one thing while thinking about another.

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

You want a wife who is intelligent, but not too intelligent.

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

One measure of a truly free society is the vigor with which it protects the liberties of its individual citizens. As technology has advanced in America, it has increasingly encroached on one of those liberties--what I term the right of personal privacy. Modern information systems, data banks, credit records, mailing list abuses, electronic snooping, the collection of personal data for one purpose that may be used for another--all these have left millions of Americans deeply concerned by the privacy they cherish. And the time has come, therefore, for a major initiative to define the nature and extent of the basic rights of privacy and to erect new safeguards to ensure that those rights are respected.

The man of thought who will not act is ineffective; the man of action who will not think is dangerous.

When the President does it , that means that it is not illegal.