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.
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.
The presidency has many problems, but boredom is the least of them.
When I retire I'm going to spend my evenings by the fireplace going through those boxes. There are things in there that ought to be burned.
I don't know anything that builds the will to win better than competitive sports.
Any change is resisted because bureaucrats have a vested interest in the chaos in which they exist.
The Cold War isn't thawing; it is burning with a deadly heat. Communism isn't sleeping; it is, as always, plotting, scheming, working, fighting.
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 believe in the battle-whether it's the battle of a campaign or the battle of this office, which is a continuing battle.
In the television age, the key distinction is between the candidate who can speak poetry and the one who can only speak prose.
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.
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.
If you take no risks, you will suffer no defeats. But if you take no risks, you win no victories.
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 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.
You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.
Let us move from the era of confrontation to the era of negotiation.
If an individual wants to be a leader and isn't controversial, that means he never stood for anything.
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 can take it. The tougher it gets, the cooler I get.