Richard M. Nixon

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.

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.

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.

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

My concern today is not with the length of a person's hair but with his conduct.

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.

It I talked about Watergate, I was described as struggling to free myself from the morass. If I did not talk about Watergate, I was accused of being out of touch with reality.

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

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

Tell them to send everything that can fly.

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

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.

I let the American people down.

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.

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

There will be no whitewash in the White House.

The press is the enemy.

I can see clearly now... that I was wrong in not acting more decisively and more forthrightly in dealing with Watergate.

I have impeached myself by resigning.

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.

Never say no when a client asks for something, even if it is the moon. You can always try, and anyhow there is plenty of time afterwards to explain that it was not possible.

My strong point, if I have a strong point, is performance. I always do more than I say. I always produce more than I promise.

Tonight - to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans - I ask for your support.

If we take the route of the permanent handout, the American character will itself be impoverished.

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.

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

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.

We are not spending the Federal Government's money, we are spending the taxpayer's money, and it must be spent n a way which guarantees his money's worth and yields the fullest possible benefit to the people being helped.

The time has come for us to draw the line. The time has come for the responsible leaders of both political parties to take a stand against overgrown Government and for the American taxpayer.

The answer to many of the domestic problems we face is not higher taxes and more spending. It is less waste, more results and greater freedom for the individual American to earn a rightful place in his own community - and for States and localities to address their own needs in their own ways, in the light of their own priorities.

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

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.

Castro couldn't even go to the bathroom unless the Soviet Union put the nickel in the toilet.

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.

I don't think that a leader can control, to any great extent, his destiny. Very seldom can he step in and change the situation if the forces of history are running in another direction.

By the time you get dressed, drive out there, play 18 holes and come home, you've blown seven hours. There are better things you can do with your time.

The mark of a true politician is that he is never at a loss for words because he is always half-expecting to be asked to make a speech.

Sure there are dishonest men in local government. But there are dishonest men in national government too.

I brought myself down. I impeached myself by resigning.

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.

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

I played by the rules of politics as I found them.

I am not a crook.

Finishing second in the Olympics gets you silver. Finishing second in politics gets you oblivion.

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

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

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

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.

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.

You must pursue this investigation of Watergate even if it leads to the president. I'm innocent. You've got to believe I'm innocent. If you don't, take my job.