Quotations by:
Nixon, Richard Milhous
What starts the process, really, are laughs and slights and snubs. But if you are reasonably intelligent and if your anger is deep and strong enough, you learn you can change those attitudes by excellence, personal gut performance, while those who have everything are sitting on their fat butts.
Public opinion polls are useful if a politician uses them only to learn approximately what the people are thinking, so that he can talk to them more intelligently. The politician who sways with the polls is not worth his pay. And I believe the people eventually catch up with the man who merely tells them what he thinks they want to hear.
There is no such thing as a nonpolitical speech by a politician.
Honesty may not be the best policy, but it is worth trying once in a while.
Richard M. Nixon (1913-1994) American politician, writer, US President (1967-74)
Comment in a meeting (1970)
Quoted in H. Stein, "Herb Stein's Unfamiliar Quotations," Slate (16 May 1997).
The President’s chief job is to lead, not to administer; it is not to oversee every detail, but to put the right people in charge, to provide them with basic guidance and direction, and to let them do their job.