Richard M. Nixon President Quotations

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.

When the death of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt thrust him suddenly into the Presidency in April of 1945 at one of the most critical moments of our history, he met that moment with courage and vision. His farsighted leadership in the postwar era has helped ever since to preserve peace and freedom in the world.

If the President does it, it can't be illegal.

Always give your best. Never get discouraged. Never be petty.

As you know, the separation of church and state is not subject to discussion or alteration. Under our Constitution no church or religion can be supported by the U.S. Government. We maintain freedom of religion so that an American can either worship in the church of his choice or choose to go to no church at all.

You don't know how to lie. If you can't lie, you'll never go anywhere.

Defeat doesn't finish a man, quit does. A man is not finished when he's defeated. He's finished when he quits.

I hereby resign this office of president of the United States.

I'm not going to be the first American president to lose a war.

It has been said that Canada is bounded 'on the north by gold, on the west by the East, on the east by history - and on the south by friends'.* We hope that will always be the case and we hope it will be the case not only with respect to the United States, your immediate neighbor to the south, but with respect to all your southern neighbors - and ours - who are bound by the great forces of geography and history which are distinctive to the New World.

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

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.

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.

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.

What kind of nation we will be, what kind of world we will live in, whether we shape the future in the image of our hopes, is ours to determine by our actions and our choices.

The American people are entitled to see the president and to hear his views directly, and not to see him only through the press.

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

You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.

Our chief justices have probably had more profound and lasting influence on their times and on the direction of the nation than most presidents.

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.

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.

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.

Nothing would please the Kremlin more than to have the people of this country choose a second rate president.

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.

Unless a president can protect the privacy of the advice he gets, he cannot get the advice he needs.

If I were to make public these tapes, containing blunt and candid remarks on many different subjects, the confidentiality of the office of the president would always be suspect.

Bring us together again.

The great silent majority.