Top 300 Richard M. Nixon Quotes (2025 Update)
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151. “The greatest honor history can bestow is that of peacemaker.”

— Richard M. Nixon

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

— Richard M. Nixon

153. “I had never expected that the China initiative would come to fruition in the form of a Ping-Pong team.”

— Richard M. Nixon

154. “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

155. “Unpredictability is the greatest asset a leader can have.”

— Richard M. Nixon

156. “Italy hasn’t had a government since Mussolini.”

— Richard M. Nixon

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

— Richard M. Nixon

158. “There will be no whitewash in the White House.”

— Richard M. Nixon

159. “The peace we seek to win is not victory over any other people, but the peace that comes “with healing in its wings;” with compassion for those who have suffered; with understanding for those who have opposed us; with the opportunity for all the peoples of this Earth to choose their own destiny.”

— Richard M. Nixon

160. “The press is the enemy.”

— Richard M. Nixon

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

— Richard M. Nixon

162. “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

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

— Richard M. Nixon

164. “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

165. “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

166. “Where the hell is Chad?”

— Richard M. Nixon

167. “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

168. “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

169. “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

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

— Richard M. Nixon

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

— Richard M. Nixon

172. “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

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

— Richard M. Nixon

174. “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

175. “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

176. “I have never been a quitter. To leave office before my term is completed is opposed to every instinct in my body. But as president I must put the interests of America first Therefore, I shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow.”

— Richard M. Nixon

177. “Until he has been part of a cause larger than himself, no man is truly whole.”

— Richard M. Nixon

178. “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

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

— Richard M. Nixon

180. “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

181. “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

182. “It is not enough just to be for peace. The point is, what can we do about it?”

— Richard M. Nixon

183. “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 M. Nixon

184. “People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook. I earned everything I’ve got.”

— Richard M. Nixon

185. “I would not like to be a political leader in Russia. They never know when they’re being taped.”

— Richard M. Nixon

186. “There is no such thing as a nonpolitical speech by a politician.”

— Richard M. Nixon

187. “It is necessary for me to establish a winner image. Therefore, I have to beat somebody.”

— Richard M. Nixon

188. “As this long and difficult war ends, I would like to address a few special words to the American people: Your steadfastness in supporting our insistence on peace with honor has made peace with honor possible.”

— Richard M. Nixon

189. “As far as I am concerned now, I have no enemies in the press whatsoever.”

— Richard M. Nixon

190. “I doubt if any of them would even intentionally double-park.”

— Richard M. Nixon

191. “I think Congress has spent enough time on ethics. I think it’s time they moved on to something else.”

— Richard M. Nixon

192. “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.”

— Richard M. Nixon

193. “Any lady who is first lady likes being first lady. I don’t care what they say, they like it.”

— Richard M. Nixon

194. “It’s long been common practice among many to draw a distinction between “human rights” and “property rights,” suggesting that the two are separate and unequal – with “property rights” second to “human rights.””

— Richard M. Nixon

195. “The one thing sure about politics is that what goes up comes down and what goes down often comes up.”

— Richard M. Nixon

196. “The worst thing a politician can be is dull. At least I’m interesting.”

— Richard M. Nixon

197. “I let the American people down.”

— Richard M. Nixon

198. “A public man must never forget that he loses his usefulness when he as an individual, rather than his policy, becomes the issue.”

— Richard M. Nixon

199. “If I had my life to live over, I would have liked to have ended up as a sportswriter.”

— Richard M. Nixon

200. “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