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

Scrubbing floors and emptying bedpans has as much dignity as the Presidency.

Tell them to send everything that can fly.

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 wish I could give you a lot of advice, based on my experience of winning political debates. But I don't have that experience. My only experience is at losing them.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

I brought myself down. I impeached myself by resigning.

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.

Americans admire a people who can scratch a desert and produce a garden. The Israelis have shown qualities that Americans identify with: guts, patriotism, idealism, a passion for freedom. I have seen it. I know. I believe that.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Voters quickly forget what a man says.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Watergate had become the center of the media's universe, and during the remaining year of my presidency the media tried to force everything else to revolve around it.

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

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

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.

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

The finest steel has to go through the hottest fire.

Only if you have been in the deepest valley, can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.

A man is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.

Never let your head hang down. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way. And don't pray when it rains if you don't pray when the sun shines.

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.

Remember, always give your best. Never get discouraged. Never be petty. Always remember, others may hate you. But those who hate you don't win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.

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

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

If you take no risks, you will suffer no defeats. But if you take no risks, you win no victories.

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

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

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.

Those who hate you don't win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.