Top 300 Richard M. Nixon Quotes (2023 Update)
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101. “Don’t try to take on a new personality; it doesn’t work.”

— Richard M. Nixon

102. “When I grow up, I want to be an honest lawyer so things like that can’t happen.”

— Richard M. Nixon

103. “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

104. “Honesty may not be the best policy, but it is worth trying once in a while.”

— Richard M. Nixon

105. “A riot is a spontaneous outburst. A war is subject to advance planning.”

— Richard M. Nixon

106. “Let us begin by committing ourselves to the truth to see it like it is, and tell it like it is, to find the truth, to speak the truth, and to live the truth.”

— Richard M. Nixon

107. “We seek friendly relations with all nations. Any nation can be our friend without being any other nation’s enemy.”

— Richard M. Nixon

108. “I was not lying. I said things that later on seemed to be untrue.”

— Richard M. Nixon

109. “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

110. “I’m not a crook. I’ve earned everything I’ve got.”

— Richard M. Nixon

111. “The ultimate test of a nation’s character is not how it responds to adversity in war but how it meets the challenge of peace.”

— Richard M. Nixon

112. “The Pakistanis are straightforward and sometimes extremely stupid. The Indians are more devious, sometimes so smart that we fall for their line.”

— Richard M. Nixon

113. “I see the face of a child. He lives in a great city. He is black. Or he is white. He is Mexican, Italian, Polish. None of that matters. What matters, he’s an American child.”

— Richard M. Nixon

114. “My concern today is not with the length of a person’s hair but with his conduct.”

— Richard M. Nixon

115. “Peace is the real and right memorial for those who have died in war.”

— Richard M. Nixon

116. “Anybody who wants to be an ambassador, wants to pay at least $250,000.”

— Richard M. Nixon

117. “America will not tolerate being pushed around by anybody, anyplace.”

— Richard M. Nixon

118. “Because of the realities of human nature, perfect peace is achieved in two places only: in the grave and at the typewriter.”

— Richard M. Nixon

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

— Richard M. Nixon

120. “I hereby resign this office of president of the United States.”

— Richard M. Nixon

121. “Nobody is a friend of ours. Let’s face it.”

— Richard M. Nixon

122. “I never say something I cannot do. And I always will do more than I can say.”

— Richard M. Nixon

123. “Peace demands more, not less, from a people. Peace lacks the clarity of purpose and the cadence of war. War is scripted: peace is improvisation.”

— Richard M. Nixon

124. “I let the American people down, and I have to carry that burden for the rest of my life. My political life is over. I will never again have an opportunity to serve in any official position. Maybe I can give a little advice from time to time.”

— Richard M. Nixon

125. “When I am the candidate, I run the campaign.”

— Richard M. Nixon

126. “But more than anything else, we have learned that legal assistance for the poor, when properly provided, is one of the most constructive ways to help them help themselves.”

— Richard M. Nixon

127. “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

128. “The average American is just like the child in the family.”

— Richard M. Nixon

129. “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

130. “Voters quickly forget what a man says.”

— Richard M. Nixon

131. “Tonight – to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans – I ask for your support.”

— Richard M. Nixon

132. “If you are ever going to lie, you go to jail for the lie rather than the crime. So believe me, don’t ever lie.”

— Richard M. Nixon

133. “If I had feelings, I probably wouldn’t have even survived.”

— Richard M. Nixon

134. “Government can provide opportunity. But opportunity means nothing unless people are prepared to seize it.”

— Richard M. Nixon

135. “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.”

— Richard M. Nixon

136. “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

137. “Where the hell is Chad?”

— Richard M. Nixon

138. “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.”

— Richard M. Nixon

139. “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

140. “We are all in it together. This is a war. We take a few shots and it will be over. We will give them a few shots and it will be over.”

— Richard M. Nixon

141. “History will treat me fairly. Historians probably won’t, because most historians are on the left.”

— Richard M. Nixon

142. “We shall continue, in this era of negotiation, to work for the limitation of nuclear arms and to reduce the danger of confrontation between the great powers.”

— Richard M. Nixon

143. “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

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

— Richard M. Nixon

145. “We don’t owe the blacks a damn thing, anyway.”

— Richard M. Nixon

146. “Once you get into this great stream of history, you can’t get out.”

— Richard M. Nixon

147. “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

148. “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.”

— Richard M. Nixon

149. “I seriously doubt if we will ever have another war. This is probably the very last one.”

— Richard M. Nixon

150. “No failure is final unless you ratify it.”

— Richard M. Nixon