Line #59 Quotes/RichardNixon


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3	[[folder:Quotes from Nixon]]
4	->Let's look at the strong societies. [[ArsonMurderAndAdmiration The Russians.]] Goddamn, they root 'em out... You think the Russians allow dope? Homosexuality, dope, immorality, are the enemies of strong societies.
5	-->-- Transcripts from White House tapes, 1971
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8	->[[HobbesWasRight People react to fear]], not love. They don't teach that in Sunday school, but it's true.
9	-->-- Quoted by William Safire, ''Before the Fall'', prologue (1975).
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12	->1 in 10 chance perhaps, but save Chile...Make the economy scream.
13	-->-- Plan of attack against the Socialist government of Chile, transcripted by CIA director Richard Helms
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16	->You won't have Nixon to kick around any more, because, gentlemen, this is [[TenMinuteRetirement my last press conference]]...
17	-->-- Nixon [[HilariousInHindsight takes his ball and goes home]], California gubernatorial concession speech (1962)
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20	->People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial Well, I'm NOT a crook.]] I've earned everything I got.
21	-->-- Televised press conference with the Associated Press, 1973
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25	->[[ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem Well, when the President does it that means that it is not illegal.]]
26	-->-- Frost/Nixon interviews, 1977
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29	->Always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them. [[RevengeBeforeReason And then you destroy yourself.]]
30	-->-- Farewell speech following his resignation from the Presidency, White House East Room (8.9.74)
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33	->I call it the Madman Theory, Bob. I want the North Vietnamese to believe [[ObfuscatingInsanity I've reached the point where I might do anything to stop the war]]. We'll just slip the word to them that, "for God's sake, you know Nixon is obsessed about communism. [[YouWouldntLikeMeWhenImAngry We can't restrain him when he's angry — and he has his hand on the nuclear button]]" and Ho Chi Minh himself will be in Paris in two days begging for peace.
34	-->-- to H.R. Haldeman in 1968, shortly before taking office
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37	-> '''President Nixon''': When [[UsefulNotes/MaoZedong the Chairman says]] he voted for me he voted for the lesser of two evils.\
38	'''Chairman Mao''': I like rightists. People say you are rightists, that the Republican Party is to the right, that Prime Minister [Edward] Heath is also to the right.\
39	'''President Nixon''': And [[UsefulNotes/CharlesDeGaulle General de Gaulle]].\
40	'''Chairman Mao''': [[WildCard De Gaulle is a different question]]. They also say the Christian Democratic Party of West Germany is also to the right. I am comparatively happy when these people on the right come into power.\
41	'''President Nixon''': I think the important thing to note is that in America, at least this time, those on the right can do what those on the left talk about.
42	-->-- ''[[https://www.chinafile.com/library/nyrb-china-archive/kissinger-emperor Transcript of Exchange during Nixon's visit to China]]''
43	[[/folder]]
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45	[[folder:Quotes about Nixon]]
46	->[[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,902452,00.html Nixon's the One]]
47	-->-- '''Nixon's campaign motto''', later used by critics for ironic purposes
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50	->Richard Nixon is a no good, lying bastard. He can lie out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, and if he ever caught himself telling the truth, he'd lie [[DickDastardlyStopsToCheat just to keep his hand in.]]
51	-->-- '''UsefulNotes/HarryTruman'''
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54	->The President wants me to argue that he is as powerful a monarch as UsefulNotes/LouisXIV, only four years at a time, and is not subject to the processes of any court in the land except the court of impeachment.
55	-->-- '''James D. St. Clair''', defense counsel in ''United States v. Nixon''
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58	->''"I may not know much, but I know chicken sh*t from chicken salad…He’s like a Spanish horse, who runs faster than anyone for the first nine lengths and then turns around and run backwards. You’ll see – he’ll do something wrong in the end. He always does."''
59	-->-- '''UsefulNotes/LyndonJohnson''' as he prepared to turn over the White House to Nixon in 1969
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62	->The political lesson of Watergate is this: Never again must America allow an arrogant, elite guard of [[CorruptPolitician political adolescents]] to by-pass the regular party organization and dictate the terms of a national election.
63	-->-- '''UsefulNotes/GeraldFord'''
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66	->Can you imagine what this man would have been if someone loved him?
67	-->-- '''UsefulNotes/HenryKissinger'''
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70	->But greatness was always suspected in Churchill, de Gaulle, Lincoln. One test of it was their prose, a resonance to all they said or wrote, even in defeat. Men do not sound like that if they have nothing in them. And the Nixon on the podium that morning, so exhaustively prepared, turning on well-oiled hinges from question to question, pointing to all his old friend-foes of the press as he stood there, arm lifted from his slight Ed Sullivan humpback, his eyes testing response to each joke before his mouth gave its belated jerk, eyes and mouth in perpetual counterpoint playing against each other--this Nixon was the soul of hard-earned competence, but he had no touch of greatness.
71	-->-- '''Garry Wills''', ''Nixon Agonistes''
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74	->Whatever Nixon's impulses to engage in political combat, which had been so much a part of his public career and reflected his true instincts, [[PragmaticVillainy he understood that Americans wanted their president to shun polemics as much as possible and unify rather than divide the country.]] Nixon was overwhelmingly self-interested, but he was [[VillainWithGoodPublicity someone who shrewdly presented himself as a wise president always putting the larger national interest ahead of self-serving ends.]]
75	-->-- '''Robert Dallek,''' ''Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power''
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78	->How can one evaluate such an idiosyncratic president, so brilliant and so morally lacking?
79	-->-- '''Historian James [=MacGregor=] Burns'''
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82	-> I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don't know. They're outside my ken. But sometimes when I'm in a theater I can feel them.
83	-->-- '''Creator/PaulineKael'''
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86	->I have tender feelings for Nixon, [[NostalgiaFilter because everybody has warm feelings about their childhood]]. Actually, I didn't like the Watergate trials 'cause they interrupted ''Series/TheMunsters''... Nixon was the last liberal president. [[WhatTheRomansHaveDoneForUs He supported women's rights, the environment, ending the draft, youth involvement]], and now he's the boogeyman? [John] Kerry couldn't even run on that today.
87	-->-- '''Creator/StephenColbert'''
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90	->Oh, he's just like all of us. A mass of neuroses. Insecure, frightened, arrogant...terribly paranoid, which for an actor is really easy to play. You don't have to research that at all...And in the end, someone who could — I've said this before but I think it's appropriate — someone who could only climb up so many rungs of the ladder, and then when he would get to a certain level on that ladder, it would begin to be what I would call 'the winds of terror.' It would be too much for him...And I think he actually passed them once, been on the top rung, became the president of the United States, and whatever the voices in his head were that ruled his life, they said: "You know, Dick, you don't belong up here..."
91	-->-- '''Creator/FrankLangella,''' who played Nixon in the movie ''Film/FrostNixon''
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94	->As for support, we may recall the last major program for helping families at the level of survival was under Richard Nixon. In many respects Nixon was the last liberal president.
95	-->-- '''[[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/21/noam-chomsky-richard-nixon_n_4832847.html Noam Chomsky]]'''
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98	->Don't blame me, I'm from Massachusetts.
99	-->-- A bumper sticker from around the time of the Watergate scandal. Massachusetts was the only state that Nixon failed to carry during his landslide re-election in 1972.
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102	->I don't know what the President believes. Maybe he doesn't believe in anything.
103	-->-- '''George Romney''' (UsefulNotes/{{Mitt\|Romney}}'s dad), Governor of Michigan and Cabinet member
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106	->It struck me from time to time that Nixon, as a character, would have been so easy to fix, in the sense of removing these rather petty flaws. And yet, I think it's also true that if you did this, you would probably have removed that very inner core of insecurity that led to his drive. A secure Nixon almost surely, in my view, would never have been President of the United States at all.
107	-->-- '''Elliot Richardson''', Cabinet member
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110	->(Nixon) represents that dark, venal and incurably violent side of the American character that almost every country in the world has learned to fear and despise. Our Barbie-doll president, with his Barbie-doll wife and his boxful of Barbie-doll children is also America's answer to the monstrous Mr. Hyde. He speaks for the Werewolf in us; the bully, the predatory shyster who turns into something unspeakable, full of claws and bleeding string-warts on nights when the moon comes too close....
111	-->-- '''Creator/HunterSThompson'''
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114	->If the right people had been in charge of Nixon's funeral, his casket would have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning. Even his funeral was illegal. He was queer in the deepest way. His body should have been burned in a trash bin.
115	-->-- from '''Hunter S. Thompson'''[='s=] [[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1994/07/he-was-a-crook/308699/ obituary]] of Nixon.
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118	->It is worth reminding yourself once in a while just how deeply weird Nixon was. [[ParodyDisplacement He’s been rendered so silly by a lifetime of cartoonish impressions]], it’s genuinely unsettling to watch him make unyielding eye contact while saying [[ValuesDissonance "I believe that forced integration of the suburbs is not in the national interest"]] like a cold robot powered by racism. All I’m saying is, it really says something that the most human version of Nixon is [[WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}} the one where he’s a cartoon head in a jar]].
119	-->-- '''Creator/JohnOliver''', ''Series/LastWeekTonightWithJohnOliver''
120	[[/folder]]
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122	[[folder:Nixon in fiction]]
123	->''"When [the American people] look at you, they see who they want to be. When they look at me, they see what they are."''
124	-->-- '''Nixon''' (Creator/AnthonyHopkins) to a portrait of UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy, ''Film/{{Nixon}}''
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127	->''Do you remember\
128	Your President Nixon?\
129	Do you remember\
130	The bills you have to pay\
131	For even yesterday?!''
132	-->--'''Music/DavidBowie''', "Young Americans"
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135	->''Nixon was a sweating, filthy liar...''
136	-->-- '''Music/JonathanCoulton''', "The Presidents"
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139	->''The love of Richard Nixon\
140	Death without assassination\
141	The love of Richard Nixon\
142	Yeah they all betrayed you\
143	People forget China\
144	And your war on cancer\
145	Yeah they all betrayed you\
146	Yeah and your country too''
147	-->-- '''Music/ManicStreetPreachers''', "The Love of Richard Nixon"
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150	->''Oh here's to the land you've torn out the heart of\
151	Richard Nixon, [[GetOut find yourself another country]] to be part of''
152	-->-- '''Music/PhilOchs''', "Here's to the State of Richard Nixon"
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155	->''And Richard Nixon’s on his knees he’s sent so many overseas\
156	He'd like to know if you and me could help him in some way\
157	[[VillainWithGoodPublicity A little camouflage and glue]] to mask the evil that men do\
158	A small diversion caused by two\
159	Pale kids come to play\
160	And we heard Richard Nixon say, "Welcome to the USA"''
161	-->-- '''Music/EltonJohn''', "Postcards from Richard Nixon'", about Elton and lyricist Bernie Taupin first arriving in L.A. and providing escapism for American music listeners during the Nixon administration.
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164	->''We are amazed but not amused\
165	By all the things you say that you'll do\
166	Though much concerned but not involved\
167	With decisions that are made by you\
168	But we are sick and tired of hearing your song\
169	Telling how you are gonna change right from wrong\
170	'Cause if you really want to hear our views\
171	You haven't done nothin'''
172	-->-- '''Music/StevieWonder''', "You Haven't Done Nothin'", written about Nixon following his resignation.
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175	->''Hospitals have made him cry\
176	But there's always a freeway in his eye\
177	Though his beach just got too crowded for his stroll\
178	Roads stretch out like healthy veins\
179	And wild gift horses strain the reins\
180	Where even Richard Nixon has got soul\
181	Even Richard Nixon has got soul''
182	-->-- '''Music/NeilYoung''', "Campaigner"
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185	->'''''Who's kicking who around now?!'''''
186	-->-- '''Giant cyborg Nixon''', ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}''
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189	->'''''ARRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!'''''
190	-->-- '''[[BrainInAJar Ordinary disembodied Nixon]]''', ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}''
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193	->''I hope this puts to bed that crazy stuff you had going about Leland Monroe. What were you thinking, Phelps? You'll be calling Richard Nixon a crook next!''
194	-->-- '''Captain Lachlan [=McKelty=]''', ''VideoGame/LANoire''
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197	->'''River Song''': Richard Milhous Nixon. Vietnam, Watergate...there's some good stuff too.\
198	'''The Doctor''': Not enough.\
199	'''Song''': Hippie!
200	-->-- ''Series/DoctorWho'', "[[{{Recap/DoctorWhoS32E1TheImpossibleAstronaut}} The Impossible Astronaut]]"
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203	->''There is an old Vulcan proverb: "Only Nixon could go to China."''
204	-->-- '''Spock''', ''Film/StarTrekVITheUndiscoveredCountry''
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207	->NO! I thought I made it clear the first time this came up: I ''don't want him in Hell''. [[EvenEvilHasStandards It's not fair to my other guests.]]
208	-->-- '''The Devil''', ''WesternAnimation/GodTheDevilAndBob''
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211	->'''Devil Flanders:''' I give you the Jury of the Damned! Lizzie Borden, Benedict Arnold, Blackbeard the pirate, John Dillinger, John Wilkes Booth, The Starting Line of the 1976 Philadelphia Flyers, and Richard Nixon!\
212	'''Nixon:''' [[HarsherInHindsight But, I'm not dead yet!]] Uh, in fact I just wrote an article for Redbook!\
213	'''Devil Flanders:''' Hey, listen, I did a favor for you!\
214	'''Nixon:''' Yes, Master.
215	-->-- ''[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS5E5TreehouseOfHorrorIV The Simpsons]]''
216	[[/folder]]

Context Quotes / RichardNixon