"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."

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More quotes from: Richard M. Nixon

• "A man is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits. "
• "A man who has never lost himself in a cause bigger than himself has missed ..."
• "A public man must never forget that he loses his usefulness when he as an ..."
• "A riot is a spontaneous outburst. A war is subject to advance planning. "
• "Americans admire a people who can scratch a desert and produce a garden. The Israelis ..."
• "Any change is resisted because bureaucrats have a vested interest in the chaos in which ..."
• "Any lady who is first lady likes being first lady. I don't care what they ..."
• "As far as I am concerned now, I have no enemies in the press whatsoever. "
• "As this long and difficult war ends, I would like to address a few special ..."
• "Because of what you have done the heavens have become a part of man's world. ..."
• "By taking this action, I hope that I will have hastened the start of the ..."
• "Certainly in the next 50 years we shall see a woman president, perhaps sooner than ..."
• "Don't get the impression that you arouse my anger. You see, one can only be ..."
• "Don't try to take on a new personality; it doesn't work. "
• "Finishing second in the Olympics gets you silver. Finishing second in politics gets you oblivion. "
• "For one priceless moment in the whole history of man, all of the people on ..."
• "Get a good night's sleep and don't bug anybody without asking me. "
• "I also believe that academic freedom should protect the right of a professor or student ..."
• "I am not a crook. "
• "I believe in the battle-whether it's the battle of a campaign or the battle of ..."
• "I brought myself down. I impeached myself by resigning. "
• "I can see clearly now... that I was wrong in not acting more decisively and ..."
• "I can take it. The tougher it gets, the cooler I get. "
• "I don't know anything that builds the will to win better than competitive sports. "
• "I doubt if any of them would even intentionally double-park. "
• "I gave 'em a sword. And they stuck it in, and they twisted it with ..."
• "I had come so far from the little house in Yorba Linda to this great ..."
• "I had never expected that the China initiative would come to fruition in the form ..."
• "I have impeached myself by resigning. "
• "I have never been a quitter. To leave office before my term is completed is ..."
• "I hereby resign this office of president of the United States. "
• "I knew if I continued to look around it would be difficult for me to ..."
• "I let the American people down. "
• "I played by the rules of politics as I found them. "
• "I reject the cynical view that politics is a dirty business. "
• "I think of her, two boys dying of tuberculosis, nursing four others she was a ..."
• "I took a look around the office. I walked out and closed the door behind ..."
• "I turned into the helicopter the red carpet was rolled up. The White House was ..."
• "I want you to stonewall it. "
• "I wish I could give you a lot of advice, based on my experience of ..."
• "I would have made a good Pope. "
• "I wouldn't bet the farm on it, but I'd bet the main house. I wouldn't ..."

• "I'm glad I'm not Brezhnev. Being the Russian leader in the Kremlin. You never know ..."
• "I've analyzed the best I can... and I have not found an impeachable offense, and ..."
• "I've never canceled a subscription to a newspaper because of bad cartoons or editorials. If ..."
• "If an individual wants to be a leader and isn't controversial, that means he never ..."
• "If we take the route of the permanent handout, the American character will itself be ..."
• "If you have lower than a ten percent turnover, there is a problem. And if ..."
• "If you think the United States has stood still, who built the largest shopping center ..."
• "If you want to make beautiful music, you must play the black and the white ..."
• "In the long term we can hope that religion will change the nature of man ..."
• "In the television age, the key distinction is between the candidate who can speak poetry ..."
• "It I talked about Watergate, I was described as struggling to free myself from the ..."
• "It is necessary for me to establish a winner image. Therefore, I have to beat ..."
• "It is not too strong a statement to declare that this is the way civilizations ..."
• "It's a piece of cake until you get to the top. You find you can't ..."
• "It's the responsibility of the media to look at the president with a microscope, but ..."
• "Let us move from the era of confrontation to the era of negotiation. "
• "Life isn't meant to be easy. It's hard to take being on the top - ..."
• "My concern today is not with the length of a person's hair but with his ..."
• "My own view is that taping of conversations for historical purposes was a bad decision ..."
• "My strong point is not rhetoric, it isn't showmanship, it isn't big promises-those things that ..."
• "My strong point, if I have a strong point, is performance. I always do more ..."
• "My telephone calls and meetings and decisions were now parts of a prescribed ritual aimed ..."
• "My view is that one should not break up a winning combination. "
• "Never let your head hang down. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find ..."
• "Never say no when a client asks for something, even if it is the moon. ..."
• "No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported ..."
• "Nobody is a friend of ours. Let's face it. "
• "Once one determines that he or she has a mission in life, that's it's not ..."
• "Once you get into this great stream of history, you can't get out. "
• "Only if you have been in the deepest valley, can you ever know how magnificent ..."
• "Our chief justices have probably had more profound and lasting influence on their times and ..."
• "People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I'm ..."
• "People in the media say they must look at the president with a microscope. Now, ..."
• "People see me and they think, "He's risen from the dead." "
• "People who like this sort of thing will find this is the sort of thing ..."
• "Politics would be a helluva good business if it weren't for the goddamned people. "
• "President Johnson and I have a lot in common. We were both born in small ..."
• "Rarely have so many people been so wrong about so much. "
• "Scrubbing floors and emptying bedpans has as much dignity as the Presidency. "
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• "Solutions are not the answer. "

• "Sure there are dishonest men in local government. But there are dishonest men in national ..."
• "Tell them to send everything that can fly. "
• "The 1976 Bicentennial is not going to be invented in Washington, printed in triplicate by ..."
• "The American people are entitled to see the president and to hear his views directly, ..."
• "The greatest honor history can bestow is that of peacemaker. "
• "The man who is aware of himself is henceforward independent; and he is never bored, ..."
• "The memory of that scene for me is like a frame of film forever frozen ..."
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• "The presidency has many problems, but boredom is the least of them. "
• "The press is the enemy. "
• "The student who invades an administration building, roughs up a dean, rifles the files and ..."
• "There are people who read too much: bibliobibuli. I know some who are constantly drunk ..."
• "There are some people, you know, they think the way to be a big man ..."
• "There will be no whitewash in the White House. "
• "They say, "Gee, you look great." That means they thought you looked like hell before. "
• "This is a burden I shall bear for every day of the life that is ..."
• "This is the greatest week in the history of the world since the Creation. "
• "Those who hate you don't win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself. "
• "Tonight-to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans-I ask for your support. "
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• "Unless a president can protect the privacy of the advice he gets, he cannot get ..."
• "Voters quickly forget what a man says. "
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• "We do not learn by inference and deduction and the application of mathematics to philosophy, ..."
• "We must always remember that America is a great nation today not because of what ..."
• "Well, I screwed it up real good, didn't I? "
• "What does that candyass think I sent him over there for? "
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• "When I grow up, I want to be an honest lawyer so things like that ..."
• "When I retire I'm going to spend my evenings by the fireplace going through those ..."
• "When the President does it, that means that it's not illegal. "
• "When the winds blow and the rains fall and the sun shines through the clouds ..."
• "You must never be satisfied with losing. You must get angry, terribly angry, about losing. ..."
• "You must pursue this investigation of Watergate even if it leads to the president. I'm ..."
• "You see these bums, you know, blowing up campuses storming around about this issue. "
• "You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last press ..."
• "You've got to learn to survive a defeat. That's when you develop character. "