Top 300 Richard M. Nixon Quotes (2023 Update)
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51. “This is a great day for France!”

— Richard M. Nixon

52. “What a strange creature man is that he fouls his own nest.”

— Richard M. Nixon

53. “If we succeed, it will not be because of what we have, but it will be because of what we are; not because of what we own, but, rather because of what we believe.”

— Richard M. Nixon

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

— Richard M. Nixon

55. “I believe in building bridges, but we should only build our end of the bridge.”

— Richard M. Nixon

56. “Nothing is more priceless and more worthy of preservation than the rich array of animal life with which our country has been blessed. It is a many-faceted treasure, of value to scholars, scientists, and nature lovers alike, and it forms a vital part of the heritage we all share as Americans.”

— Richard M. Nixon

57. “I would have made a good pope.”

— Richard M. Nixon

58. “Politics would be a helluva good business if it weren’t for the goddamned people.”

— Richard M. Nixon

59. “Let us move from the era of confrontation to the era of negotiation.”

— Richard M. Nixon

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

— Richard M. Nixon

61. “It is in that spirit, the spirit of ’76, that I ask you to rise and join me in a toast to Chairman Mao, to Premier Chou, to the people of our two countries, and to the hope of our children that peace and harmony can be the legacy of our generation to theirs.”

— Richard M. Nixon

62. “To the ordinary guy, all this is a bunch of gobbledygook. But out of the gobbledygook comes a very clear thing: you can’t trust the government, you can’t believe what they say, and you can’t rely on their judgment.”

— Richard M. Nixon

63. “The 1970s must be the years when America pays its debt to the past by reclaiming the purity of its air, its waters, and our living environment. It is literally now or never.”

— Richard M. Nixon

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

— Richard M. Nixon

65. “I’m not a lovable man.”

— Richard M. Nixon

66. “Communism starts with the proposition that there are no universal truths or general truths of human nature.”

— Richard M. Nixon

67. “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.”

— Richard M. Nixon

68. “I don’t know anything that builds the will to win better than competitive sports.”

— Richard M. Nixon

69. “The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word “crisis.” One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity.”

— Richard M. Nixon

70. “Millions who endure poverty and bad government can now know what they are missing. To see how the other half lives all they have to do is switch on their television sets.”

— Richard M. Nixon

71. “The Congress, the Administration and the public all share a profound commitment to the rescue of our natural environment, and the preservation of the Earth as a place both habitable by and hospitable to man.”

— Richard M. Nixon

72. “You’ve got to learn to survive a defeat. That’s when you develop character.”

— Richard M. Nixon

73. “History is a pathetic junkyard of broken treaties.”

— Richard M. Nixon

74. “I’ve never left a game before it ended. You never know when there could be a big turnaround in the game.”

— Richard M. Nixon

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

— Richard M. Nixon

76. “They say it’s the responsibility of the media to look at government – especially the President – with a microscope. I don’t argue with that, but when they use a proctoscope, it’s going too far.”

— Richard M. Nixon

77. “What starts the process, really, are laughs and slights and snubs when you are a kid. If your anger is deep enough and strong enough, you learn that you can change those attitudes by excellence, personal gut performance.”

— Richard M. Nixon

78. “The ability to be cool, confident, and decisive in crisis is not an inherited characteristic but is the direct result of how well the individual has prepared himself for the battle.”

— Richard M. Nixon

79. “The three most difficult words to speak are, “I was wrong.””

— Richard M. Nixon

80. “The developing coherence of Asian regional thinking is reflected in a disposition to consider problems and loyalties in regional terms, and to evolve regional approaches to development needs and to the evolution of a New World Order.”

— Richard M. Nixon

81. “I don’t know a lot about politics, but I know a lot about baseball.”

— Richard M. Nixon

82. “A politician knows that his friends are not always his allies, and that his adversaries are not always his enemies.”

— Richard M. Nixon

83. “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

84. “I know you heard what you thought I said, but what I said isn’t what I meant.”

— Richard M. Nixon

85. “I often thought that if there had been a good rap group around in those days, I might have chosen a career in music instead of politics.”

— Richard M. Nixon

86. “Tell them to send everything that can fly.”

— Richard M. Nixon

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

— Richard M. Nixon

88. “No words can describe the depths of my regret and pain at the anguish my mistakes over Watergate have caused the nation and the presidency – a nation I so deeply love and an institution I so greatly respect.”

— Richard M. Nixon

89. “This is the greatest week in the history of the world since the Creation, because as a result of what happened in this week, the world is bigger, infinitely.”

— Richard M. Nixon

90. “I’m not going to be the first American president to lose a war.”

— Richard M. Nixon

91. “Any nation that decides the only way to achieve peace is through peaceful means is a nation that will soon be a piece of another nation.”

— Richard M. Nixon

92. “Once genius is submerged by bureaucracy, a nation is doomed to mediocrity.”

— Richard M. Nixon

93. “I don’t think a woman should be in any government job whatever. I mean, I really don’t. The reason why I do is mainly because they are erratic. And emotional.”

— Richard M. Nixon

94. “The President wants me to argue that he is as powerful a monarch as Louis XIV, only four years at a time, and is not subject to the processes of any court in the land except the court of impeachment.”

— Richard M. Nixon

95. “Baseball is great because anything can happen through the ninth inning.”

— Richard M. Nixon

96. “Well, I screwed it up real good, didn’t I?”

— Richard M. Nixon

97. “Law enforcement officers should use only the minimum force necessary in dealing with disorders when they arise. A human life-the life of a student, soldier, or police officer-is a precious thing, and the taking of a life can be justified only as a necessary and last resort.”

— Richard M. Nixon

98. “God, of course, is the greatest philosopher of all.”

— Richard M. Nixon

99. “Maybe New York shouldn’t survive. Maybe it should go through a cycle of destruction.”

— Richard M. Nixon

100. “Never be too proud to go onto your knees before God.”

— Richard M. Nixon