Quotes from Richard M. 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.

Black Americans, no more than white Americans, they do not want more government programs which perpetuate dependency. They don't want to be a colony in a nation.

I have earned every cent. And in all of my years of public life I have never obstructed justice.

I like the job I have, but if I had to live my life over again, I would like to have ended up a sports writer.

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.

My own view is that taping of conversations for historical purposes was a bad decision on the part of all the presidents. I don't think Kennedy should have done it. I don't think Johnson should have done it, and I don't think we should have done it.

Tell them to send everything that can fly.

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

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

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.

Success is not a harbor but a voyage with its own perils to the spirit ... The lesson that most of us on this voyage never learn, but can never quite forget, is that to win is sometimes to lose.

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.

A man is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.

I've analyzed the best I can... and I have not found an impeachable offense, and therefore resignation is not an acceptable course.

Any lady who is first lady likes being first lady. I don't care what they say, they like it.

Don't get the impression that you arouse my anger. You see, one can only be angry with those he respects.

There are some people, you know, they think the way to be a big man is to shout and stomp and raise hell-and then nothing ever really happens. I'm not like that I never shoot blanks.

Well, I screwed it up real good, didn't I?

The finest steel has to go through the hottest fire.

Each moment in history is a fleeting time, precious and unique. But some stand out as moments of beginning, in which courses are set that shape decades or centuries.

A president can ask for reconciliation in the racial conflict that divides Americans. But reconciliation comes only from the hearts of people.

You've got to learn to survive a defeat. That's when you develop character.

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.

I let the American people down.