Once you get into this great stream of history, you can’t get out.

We don’t owe the blacks a damn thing, anyway.

History will treat me fairly. Historians probably won’t, because most historians are on the left.

We are all in it together. This is a war. We take a few shots and it will be over. We will give them a few shots and it will be over.

In the television age, the key distinction is between the candidate who can speak poetry and the one who can only speak prose.

We shall continue, in this era of negotiation, to work for the limitation of nuclear arms and to reduce the danger of confrontation between the great powers.

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

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

If I had feelings, I probably wouldn’t have even survived.

Your mind must always go, even while you’re shaking hands and going through all the maneuvers. I developed the ability long ago to do one thing while thinking about another.

Where the hell is Chad?

The developing coherence of Asian regional thinking is reflected in a disposition to consider problems and loyalties in regional terms, and to evolve regional approaches to development needs and to the evolution of a New World Order.

Voters quickly forget what a man says.

If you are ever going to lie, you go to jail for the lie rather than the crime. So believe me, don’t ever lie.

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

We must always remember that America is a great nation today not because of what government did for people but because of what people did for themselves and for one another.

But more than anything else, we have learned that legal assistance for the poor, when properly provided, is one of the most constructive ways to help them help themselves.

Certainly in the next 50 years we shall see a woman president, perhaps sooner than you think. A woman can and should be able to do any political job that a man can do.

The average American is just like the child in the family.

When I am the candidate, I run the campaign.

I let the American people down, and I have to carry that burden for the rest of my life. My political life is over. I will never again have an opportunity to serve in any official position. Maybe I can give a little advice from time to time.

Peace demands more, not less, from a people. Peace lacks the clarity of purpose and the cadence of war. War is scripted: peace is improvisation.

Nobody is a friend of ours. Let’s face it.

I never say something I cannot do. And I always will do more than I can say.

Anybody who wants to be an ambassador, wants to pay at least $250,000.

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

The man of thought who will not act is ineffective; the man of action who will not think is dangerous.

Because of the realities of human nature, perfect peace is achieved in two places only: in the grave and at the typewriter.

America will not tolerate being pushed around by anybody, anyplace.

Peace is the real and right memorial for those who have died in war.

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.

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

The Pakistanis are straightforward and sometimes extremely stupid. The Indians are more devious, sometimes so smart that we fall for their line.

I’m not a crook. I’ve earned everything I’ve got.

The ultimate test of a nation’s character is not how it responds to adversity in war but how it meets the challenge of peace.

I was not lying. I said things that later on seemed to be untrue.

The ability to be cool, confident, and decisive in crisis is not an inherited characteristic but is the direct result of how well the individual has prepared himself for the battle.

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.

We seek friendly relations with all nations. Any nation can be our friend without being any other nation’s enemy.

A riot is a spontaneous outburst. A war is subject to advance planning.

Honesty may not be the best policy, but it is worth trying once in a while.

What starts the process, really, are laughs and slights and snubs when you are a kid. If your anger is deep enough and strong enough, you learn that you can change those attitudes by excellence, personal gut performance.

When I grow up, I want to be an honest lawyer so things like that can’t happen.

Don’t try to take on a new personality; it doesn’t work.

Italy hasn’t had a government since Mussolini.

Millions who endure poverty and bad government can now know what they are missing. To see how the other half lives all they have to do is switch on their television sets.

Maybe New York shouldn’t survive. Maybe it should go through a cycle of destruction.

God, of course, is the greatest philosopher of all.

Law enforcement officers should use only the minimum force necessary in dealing with disorders when they arise. A human life-the life of a student, soldier, or police officer-is a precious thing, and the taking of a life can be justified only as a necessary and last resort.

Communism starts with the proposition that there are no universal truths or general truths of human nature.

The 1970s must be the years when America pays its debt to the past by reclaiming the purity of its air, its waters, and our living environment. It is literally now or never.

Once genius is submerged by bureaucracy, a nation is doomed to mediocrity.

It is in that spirit, the spirit of ’76, that I ask you to rise and join me in a toast to Chairman Mao, to Premier Chou, to the people of our two countries, and to the hope of our children that peace and harmony can be the legacy of our generation to theirs.

No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now.

You have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizes this all while not appearing to.

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

The communists have lost the cold war, but the west has not yet won it.

I was under medication when I made the decision to burn the tapes.

Politics would be a helluva good business if it weren’t for the goddamned people.

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

Nothing is more priceless and more worthy of preservation than the rich array of animal life with which our country has been blessed. It is a many-faceted treasure, of value to scholars, scientists, and nature lovers alike, and it forms a vital part of the heritage we all share as Americans.

Any nation that decides the only way to achieve peace is through peaceful means is a nation that will soon be a piece of another nation.

I believe in building bridges, but we should only build our end of the bridge.

This is the greatest week in the history of the world since the Creation, because as a result of what happened in this week, the world is bigger, infinitely.

I can take it. The tougher it gets, the cooler I get.

My gravest secret is that I really did fake the moon landing. On Venus!

Tell them to send everything that can fly.

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

Let us remember that the main purpose of American aid is not to help other nations, but to help ourselves.

People react to fear, not love; they don’t teach that in Sunday School, but it’s true.

For one priceless moment in the whole history of man, all of the people on this earth are truly one. One in their pride at what you have done, one in our prayers that you will return safely to earth.

I often thought that if there had been a good rap group around in those days, I might have chosen a career in music instead of politics.

I know you heard what you thought I said, but what I said isn’t what I meant.

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.

A politician knows that his friends are not always his allies, and that his adversaries are not always his enemies.

I don’t know a lot about politics, but I know a lot about baseball.

I don’t give a damn about the civilians.

The three most difficult words to speak are, I was wrong.

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

They say it’s the responsibility of the media to look at government – especially the President – with a microscope. I don’t argue with that, but when they use a proctoscope, it’s going too far.

I’ve never left a game before it ended. You never know when there could be a big turnaround in the game.

History is a pathetic junkyard of broken treaties.

The Congress, the Administration and the public all share a profound commitment to the rescue of our natural environment, and the preservation of the Earth as a place both habitable by and hospitable to man.

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

The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word “crisis.” One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity.

I don’t know anything that builds the will to win better than competitive sports.

I’m not a lovable man.

To the ordinary guy, all this is a bunch of gobbledygook. But out of the gobbledygook comes a very clear thing: you can’t trust the government, you can’t believe what they say, and you can’t rely on their judgment.

If an individual wants to be a leader and isn’t controversial, that means he never stood for anything.

Let us move from the era of confrontation to the era of negotiation.

You cannot win a battle in any arena merely by defending yourself.

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

I would have made a good pope.

You must never be satisfied with losing. You must get angry, terribly angry, about losing. But the mark of the good loser is that he takes his anger out on himself and not his victorious opponents or on his teammates.

If you want to make beautiful music, you must play the black and the white notes together.