Richard Nixon Quotes

190 Sourced Quotes

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 tonightto you, the great silent majority of my fellow AmericansI ask for your support.

Richard 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 Nixon
We, this nation of ours, could be the richest nation in the world. We could be the freest nation in the world - but only if the arts are alive and flourishing can we experience the true meaning of our freedom, and know the full glory of the human spirit.

Richard Nixon
They can do it. Just leave them alone. That's a lifestyle I don't want to touch.

Richard Nixon
I learned that the people who have the cards are usually the ones who talk the least and the softest; those who are bluffing tend to talk loudly and give themselves away.

Richard 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 Nixon
I have a theory, too, that the best and only answer to a smear or to an honest misunderstanding of the facts is to tell the truth

Richard Nixon
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
I think the vice president should do anything the president wants him to do.

Richard Nixon
Oscar Wilde, Aristotle, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, were all homosexuals. Nero, of course, was, in a public way, in with a boy in Rome.

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

Richard Nixon
When you get in these people when you... get these people in, say: 'Look, the problem is that this will open the whole, the whole Bay of Pigs thing, and the President just feels that' ah, without going into the details... don't, don't lie to them to the extent to say there is no involvement, but just say this is sort of a comedy of errors, bizarre, without getting into it, 'the President believes that it is going to open the whole Bay of Pigs thing up again.' And, ah because these people are plugging for, for keeps and that they should call the FBI in and say that we wish for the country, don't go any further into this case, period!

Richard Nixon
There is an international disease which feeds on the notion that if you have a cause to defend, you can use any means to further your cause, since the end justifies the means. As an international community, we must oppose this notion, whether it be in Canada, in the United States, or anywhere else. No cause justifies violence as long as the system provides for change by peaceful means.

Richard Nixon
Let us understand: North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that.

Richard Nixon
In any organization, the man at the top must bear the responsibility. That responsibility, therefore, belongs here, in this office. I accept it. And I pledge to you tonight, from this office, that I will do everything in my power to ensure that the guilty are brought to justice and that such abuses are purged from our political processes in the years to come, long after I have left this office.

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
I also believe that academic freedom should protect the right of a professor or student to advocate Marxism, socialism, communism, or any other minority viewpoint - no matter how distasteful to the majority, provided...

Richard Nixon
This Memorial Day should remind us of the greatness that past generations of Americans achieved from Valley Forge to Vietnam, and it should inspire us with the determination to keep America great and free by keeping America safe and strong in our own time, a time of unique destiny and opportunity for our Nation.

Richard Nixon
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.

Richard 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 Nixon