Top 300 Richard M. Nixon Quotes (2025 Update)
Page 5 of 7

201. “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

202. “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.”

— Richard M. Nixon

203. “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

204. “We can no longer afford to consider air and water common property, free to be abused by anyone without regard to the consequences. Instead, we should begin now to treat them as scarce resources, which we are no more free to contaminate than we are free to throw garbage into our neighbor’s yard.”

— Richard M. Nixon

205. “What are our schools for if not indoctrination against Communism?”

— Richard M. Nixon

206. “Jesus this song you wrote The words are sticking in my throat Peace on Earth Hear it every Christmas time But hope and history won’t rhyme So what’s it worth? This peace on Earth.”

— Richard M. Nixon

207. “In the long term we can hope that religion will change the nature of man and reduce conflict. But history is not encouraging in this respect. The bloodiest wars in history have been religious wars.”

— Richard M. Nixon

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

— Richard M. Nixon

209. “I gave ’em a sword. And they stuck it in, and they twisted it with relish. And I guess if I had been in their position, I’d have done the same thing.”

— Richard M. Nixon

210. “Success is not a harbor but a voyage with its own perils to the spirit. The game of life is to come up a winner, to be a success, or to achieve what we set out to do.”

— Richard M. Nixon

211. “Once one determines that he or she has a mission in life, that’s it’s not going to be accomplished without a great deal of pain, and that the rewards in the end may not outweigh the pain -if you recognize historically that always happens, then when it comes, you survive it.”

— Richard M. Nixon

212. “Communism denies God, enslaves men, and destroys justice.”

— Richard M. Nixon

213. “So you are lean and mean and resourceful and you continue to walk on the edge of the precipice because over the years you have become fascinated by how close you can walk without losing your balance.”

— Richard M. Nixon

214. “Mr. Stevenson has a degree alright-a PhD from the Acheson College of Cowardly Communist Containment.”

— Richard M. Nixon

215. “For among nations – as within nations – the soundest unity is that which respects diversity, and the strongest cohesion is that which rejects coercion.”

— Richard M. Nixon

216. “Under the doctrine of separation of powers, the manner in which the president personally exercises his assigned executive powers is not subject to questioning by another branch of government.”

— Richard M. Nixon

217. “Scrubbing floors and emptying bedpans has as much dignity as the Presidency.”

— Richard M. Nixon

218. “They say, “Gee, you look great.” That means they thought you looked like hell before.”

— Richard M. Nixon

219. “During the Prince’s visit, King Timahoe will be referred to only as Timahoe, since it would be inappropriate for the Prince to be outranked by a dog.”

— Richard M. Nixon

220. “The memory of that scene for me is like a frame of film forever frozen at that moment: the red carpet, the green lawn, the white house, the leaden sky. The new president and his first lady.”

— Richard M. Nixon

221. “The events that followed our withdrawal from Vietnam, including the plight of the boat people and the more than 1 million slaughtered by the new communist rulers of Cambodia, showed that media critics who said we were on the wrong side were mistaken.”

— Richard M. Nixon

222. “There are some instances where you may be ahead of us, for example, in the development of the thrust of your rockets for the investigation of outer space; there may be some instances in which we are ahead of you – in color television, for instance.”

— Richard M. Nixon

223. “Let me just say this, and I want to say this to the televison audience: I made my mistakes, but in all of my years of public life, I have never profited, never profited from public service.”

— Richard M. Nixon

224. “And I want you to know that I have no intention whatever of ever walking away from the job that the people elected me to do for the people of the United States.”

— Richard M. Nixon

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

— Richard M. Nixon

226. “Listen, I don’t know anything about polygraphs and I don’t know how accurate they are, but I know they’ll scare the hell out of people.”

— Richard M. Nixon

227. “Our peaceful borders and our peaceful history are important symbols, to be sure. What they symbolize, however, is the spirit of respect and restraint which allow us to cooperate, despite our differences, in way which help us both.”

— Richard M. Nixon

228. “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 M. Nixon

229. “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 M. Nixon

230. “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 M. Nixon

231. “I refuse to make a decision that somebody else can make. The first rule of leadership is to save yourself for the big decision. Don’t allow your mind to become cluttered.”

— Richard M. Nixon

232. “The more you stay in this kind of job, the more you realize that a public figure, a major public figure, is a lonely man.”

— Richard M. Nixon

233. “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.”

— Richard M. Nixon

234. “I’ve never canceled a subscription to a newspaper because of bad cartoons or editorials. If that were the case, I wouldn’t have any newspapers or magazines to read.”

— Richard M. Nixon

235. “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.”

— Richard M. Nixon

236. “At home, we must reject the mistaken notion – a notion that has dominated too much of the public dialogue for too long – that ever bigger Government is the answer to every problem.”

— Richard M. Nixon

237. “Watergate had become the center of the media’s universe, and during the remaining year of my presidency the media tried to force everything else to revolve around it.”

— Richard M. Nixon

238. “We will establish a new system that makes high-quality health care available to every American in a dignified manner and at a price he can afford.”

— Richard M. Nixon

239. “Let us build bridges, my friends, build bridges to human dignity across that gulf that separates black America from white America.”

— Richard M. Nixon

240. “But also out here in this dreary, difficult war, I think history will record that this may have been one of Americas finest hours, because we took a difficult task and we succeeded.”

— Richard M. Nixon

241. “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.”

— Richard M. Nixon

242. “Well, I’m not a crook.”

— Richard M. Nixon

243. “I believe in the battle-whether it’s the battle of a campaign or the battle of this office, which is a continuing battle.”

— Richard M. Nixon

244. “Americans admire a people who can scratch a desert and produce a garden. The Israelis have shown qualities that Americans identify with: guts, patriotism, idealism, a passion for freedom. I have seen it. I know. I believe that.”

— Richard M. Nixon

245. “As our cities and suburbs relentlessly expand, those priceless open spaces needed for recreation areas accessible to their people are swallowed up-often forever. Unless we preserve these spaces while they are still available, we will have none to preserve.”

— Richard M. Nixon

246. “As we work to expand our supplies of energy, we should also recognize that we must balance those efforts with our concern to preserve our environment. In the past, as we have sought new energy sources, we have too often damaged or despoiled our land.”

— Richard M. Nixon

247. “Baseball without fans is like Jayne Mansfield without a sweater. Hang on, that can be taken two ways.”

— Richard M. Nixon

248. “Reading not only enlarges and challenges the mind; it also engages and exercises the brain. Today’s youth who sits mesmerized by a television screen is not going to be tomorrow’s leader. Television watching is passive. Reading is active.”

— Richard M. Nixon

249. “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.”

— Richard M. Nixon

250. “Once you get into this great stream of history you can’t get out. You can drown. Or you can be pulled ashore by the tide. But it is awfully hard to get out when you are in the middle of the stream – if it is intended that you stay there.”

— Richard M. Nixon