Quakers

"I want to emphasize what the Secretary has said--the fact that this is the last department I have visited does not indicate that it is the last in terms of the importance of your assignment and of my respect for you, those of you who have given so much of your lives to this Department. I speak with particular feeling about this Department because I, of course, come from the West and although I have lived in most parts of the Nation--and not as much as I would have liked in the West, having come from the West, having known it as a Congressman and as a Senator and also as Vice President, having often spoken of the Western part of the country, its interests which are in many respects the responsibility of this Department--I have an especially close relationship with you."

"I can only say as I look at this group, as I realize the intelligence that is here, the dedication that you must have to your education and to your Nation, I have a good feeling about the future of this country. I believe in young America because I know young America. I would say that as you go back to your communities, I trust that each of you, whatever you go into, whatever private occupation you happen to decide on, you will reserve a part of your time for some contribution to public service. We need you. The Nation needs you. With the help of a young, vigorous American generation we can meet the great challenges that America has to meet in this last third of a century."

"We have tremendous problems abroad--no question about that--a war in Vietnam and threats of war in other areas. We have tremendous problems at home--the crisis of our cities, environmental and others. But on the other hand, look at it in terms as young people should look at the problems--not in terms of the threat, but in terms of the opportunity. Never has this Nation, any nation, had more of an opportunity to do something about its problems, the productivity of our farms, of our factories, and the rest. It is all there if we can only bring it together and get it properly distributed. Also, have this in mind: Have in mind the fact that because you were born in the United States of America and because you live in the United States of America, you in this Nation can play a great role in the affairs of the world--a greater role, actually, than any people in any nation of the world. This is not to downgrade any other great people in the world, because greatness does not come simply from the size of a nation and from the accident of where we happen to be born. But it just does happen that because of the great waves of history that at this time and place the decisions made in the United States of America, as far as the free world is concerned, will determine whether peace and freedom survive in the world. That is the challenge of young America, looking down to the end of this century. It is an exciting challenge, not a burden to be carried and whimpered about, but one to be accepted with all of the excitement that we have when we meet any kind of new experience, any kind of a challenge."

"Then one final point, and I perhaps speak somewhat from experience here, I am often asked about my philosophy about winning and losing insofar as life is concerned generally, and politics, particularly. I am expert in both, incidentally. The thing I want to emphasize to you is this: The important thing for a young person to remember is not whether you win or lose, but whether you play the game. Don't stand aside. Don't be up in the bleachers when you can be down on the field. Remember that the greatness of your life is determined by the extent to which you participate in the great events of your time. You are participating in the great events of your time. As you go through life you are going to find that when you do get in and participate you are going to win some and you are going to lose some. But what you will miss, if you do not get in, is something that you can never recover. It is far more important to get into a battle and fight hard for what you believe in and lose than not to fight at all. It is that kind of philosophy I hope you take with you when you go back to your hometowns because it is that kind of spirit that America needs, that you, as young Americans, can bring to not only the young community, but also you can inspire the older ones as well."

"Now, a bit of advice--that is what you have to learn to take when you come to these sessions--a bit of advice as to what, if I were your age, I would like to do in terms of preparing for whatever you may go into. Many of you will, I am sure, go into government. Most of you will end up, probably, in some kind of private activity as lawyers or doctors or businessmen or newspaper men and women, or whatever the case might be. But I would urge that whatever you do, as you go to college, don't specialize too much. This is an age--those years between 18 and 22 or 17 and 21, as the case might be, or if you go on to graduate school between 17 and 24 and 25--when you will have every opportunity to specialize in the law or in medicine or in some other profession. But this is the time when your minds are young, when they can, without any question, understand more, in which you can learn faster than at any time in your life. This is the time to get all of the broadest possible education that you can. I don't mean by that that the books you read in disciplines that are not the ones that are going to be your profession will be something that you will remember later on. But by having that experience now it means that you create a total environmental background that will serve you in good stead in the years ahead. The second point I would make is that one of the great things about being young is that young people are impatient. You want to go to the top very fast. I have found, for example, that the young lawyers I interviewed in our office in New York were asking, "When am I going to be a partner--tomorrow, the next day--in the firm?" Of course it takes a little time in a major law firm for that to happen. But impatience, of course, is a good factor as well. What I am suggesting to you, however, is this: Not everyone in this room is going to be the president of a corporation, is going to be a Congressman or a Senator, is going to be the top leader in the field that you choose, but everyone in this room is going to make a contribution in his particular field that is essential for the success of whoever may be that top leader."

"I want to give you the reason why I believe that 18-year-olds should have the right to vote. Not because, as many say, if you are old enough to fight you are old enough to vote. That is one reason, but not the best reason. The reason that 18-year-olds should have the right to vote is that they are smart enough to vote. They know. They are interested and more involved than were the 21-year-olds of only 20 years ago. This is a tribute to your teachers. It is a tribute to your parents and it is a tribute to you. I wish that particular message to get home to this group as you complete this particular, very exciting experience that you have had."

"I have said publicly before and I say it before this group today: As I look at the new generation of Americans of which you are, of course, outstanding examples or you would not have been selected for this program, it is the best educated new generation we have had--young generation; but more than that, it is the most involved, involved in the sense of being interested, not only in how you can get out and make a living, which was our primary concern in the 1930's when making a living was necessary in order to just keep going, but involved in the problems of your neighborhoods and the problems of your Nation and the problems of the world. Finally, it is a generation which knows more about the problems of the world and knows more about the problems of this country than has any generation in history. What this means is, very simply, that you are a political force, even though you do not yet have the right to vote. You will soon have it, of course. I say you will soon have it because you will be 21, or you will soon have it if you are from Kentucky because you will vote when you are 18. Of course, at some time there will be a constitutional amendment. I have noted that this particular organization, among many others, has indicated its support of that kind of a constitutional amendment."

"Twenty-two years ago, when I ran for office, there was an interest in politics among young people, particularly at the college age, but not at the high school age. Then I have seen a change occur--a very exciting change. Each year the age limit seems to go down insofar as the interest and understanding of politics is concerned. You would be surprised, not only at the high school age but I have found even in the grade schools today, particularly in the 6th, 7th, and 8th grades, you will find a high degree of sophistication, a high degree of understanding, about political campaigns. They participate in mock elections. They study about and know more about the world than certainly we knew many, many years ago. What I am really trying to say is this: When we hear about what is wrong with American youth today, we have to also put it in perspective by realizing what is right."

"I want to express appreciation to the Hearst Foundation for making possible what I think is one of the most exciting projects in our Government today. When I think of all of you from all over the country, from high schools, having the opportunity to come to Washington to be exposed to the great institutions of Government that are here, I think that no greater service could be rendered, not just to you--I mean it is a wonderful experience for you--but to the Nation, because you have the opportunity to go back home now and to tell the people there what government is like. And I hope many of you will be inspired to participate in government in one form or the other. I wouldn't be surprised if some of you will end up in the House or Senate or, who knows, you might be here sometime in the future."

"What kind of nation we will be, what kind of world we will live in, whether we shape the future in the image of our hopes, is ours to determine by our actions and our choices. The greatest honor history can bestow is the title of peacemaker. This honor now beckons America — the chance to help lead the world at last out of the valley of turmoil, and onto that high ground of peace that man has dreamed of since the dawn of civilization. If we succeed, generations to come will say of us now living that we mastered our moment, that we helped make the world safe for mankind. This is our summons to greatness."

"The American dream does not come to those who fall asleep."

"Each moment in history is a fleeting time, precious and unique. But some stand out as moments of beginning, in which courses are set that shape decades or centuries. This can be such a moment. Forces now are converging that make possible, for the first time, the hope that many of man's deepest aspirations can at last be realized. The spiraling pace of change allows us to contemplate, within our own lifetime, advances that once would have taken centuries. In throwing wide the horizons of space, we have discovered new horizons on earth. For the first time, because the people of the world want peace, and the leaders of the world are afraid of war, the times are on the side of peace."

"There can be no right to revolt in this society; no right to demonstrate outside the law, and, in Lincoln's words, 'no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law'. In a civilized nation no man can excuse his crime against the person or property of another by claiming that he, too, has been a victim of injustice. To tolerate that is to invite anarchy."

"Men of intellectual and moral eminence who encourage public disobedience of the law are responsible for the acts of those who inevitably follow their counsel: the poor, the ignorant and the impressionable. For example, to the professor objecting to de facto segregation, it may be crystal clear where civil disobedience may begin and where it must end. But the boundaries have become fluid to his students and other listeners. Today in the urban slums, the limits of responsible action are all but invisible."

"Our opinion-makers have gone too far in promoting the doctrine that when a law is broken, society, not the criminal is to blame. Our teachers, preachers, and politicians have gone too far in advocating the idea that each individual should determine what laws are good and what laws are bad, and that he then should obey the law he likes and disobey the law he dislikes."

"Riots were also the most virulent symptoms to date of another, and in some ways graver, national disorder — the decline in respect for public authority and the rule of law in America. Far from being a great society, our is becoming a lawless society."

"North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that."

"Hello, Neil and Buzz. I'm talking to you by telephone from the Oval Room at the White House. And this certainly has to be the most historic telephone call ever made. For every American this has to be the proudest day of our lives. And for people all over the world I am sure they, too, join with Americans in recognizing what a feat this is. Because of what you have done, the heavens have become a part of man's world. As you talk to us from the Sea of Tranquility, it inspires us to redouble our efforts to bring peace and tranquility to Earth. For one priceless moment, in the whole history of man, all the people on this Earth are truly one."

"A man is not finished when he's defeated. He's finished when he quits."

"Sock it to me?"

"Do you want to make a point or do you want to make a change? do you want to get something off your chest, or do you want to get something done?"

"I leave you gentleman now. You will now write it; you will interpret it; that's your right. But as I leave you I want you to know.... just think how much you're going to be missing. You don't have Nixon to kick around any more, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference, and I hope that what I have said today will at least make television, radio, the press recognize that they have a right and a responsibility, if they're against a candidate give him the shaft, but also recognize if they give him the shaft, put one lonely reporter on the campaign who'll report what the candidate says now and then. Thank you, gentlemen, and good day."

"If you think the United States has stood still, who built the largest shopping center in the world, the Lloyd Shopping Center right here?"

"Well, then, some of you will say, and rightly, "Well, what did you use the fund for, Senator? Why did you have to have it?" Let me tell you in just a word how a Senate office operates. First of all, a Senator gets $15,000 a year in salary. He gets enough money to pay for one trip a year, a round trip, that is, for himself, and his family between his home and Washington, DC. And then he gets an allowance to handle the people that work in his office to handle his mail. And the allowance for my State of California, is enough to hire 13 people. And let me say, incidentally, that that allowance is not paid to the Senator. It is paid directly to the individuals that the Senator puts on his payroll. But all of these people and all of these allowances are for strictly official business; business, for example, when a constituent writes in and wants you to go down to the Veteran's Administration and get some information about his GI policy — items of that type, for example. But there are other expenses that are not covered by the Government. And I think I can best discuss those expenses by asking you some questions.Do you think that when I or any other senator makes a political speech, has it printed, should charge the printing of that speech and the mailing of that speech to the taxpayers? Do you think, for example, when I or any other Senator makes a trip to his home State to make a purely political speech that the cost of that trip should be charged to the taxpayers? Do you think when a Senator makes political broadcasts or political television broadcasts, radio or television, that the expense of those broadcasts should be charged to the taxpayers? Well I know what your answer is. It's the same answer that audiences give me whenever I discuss this particular problem: The answer is no. The taxpayers shouldn't be required to finance items which are not official business but which are primarily political business."

"That's what we have and that's what we owe. It isn't very much but Pat and I have the satisfaction that every dime that we've got is honestly ours. I should say this — that Pat doesn't have a mink coat. But she does have a respectable Republican cloth coat. And I always tell her that she'd look good in anything.One other thing I probably should tell you because if we don't they'll probably be saying this about me too, we did get something — a gift — after the election. A man down in Texas heard Pat on the radio mention the fact that our two youngsters would like to have a dog. And, believe it or not, the day before we left on this campaign trip we got a message from Union Station in Baltimore saying they had a package for us. We went down to get it. You know what it was. It was a little cocker spaniel dog in a crate that he'd sent all the way from Texas. Black and white spotted. And our little girl — Tricia, the 6-year old — named it Checkers. And you know, the kids, like all kids, love the dog and I just want to say this right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we're gonna keep it."

"Now, some may ask why we don't get rid of the bases, since the Soviet Government declares today that it has only peaceful intentions. The answer is that whenever the fear and suspicions that caused us and our Allies to take measures for collective self-defense are removed, the reason for our maintaining bases will be removed. In other words, the only possible solution of this problem lies in mutual, rather than unilateral action leading toward disarmament."

"This administration has proved that it is utterly incapable of cleaning out the corruption which has completely eroded it and reestablishing the confidence and faith of the American people in the morality and honesty of their government employees."

"Isn't it better to talk about the relative merits of washing machines than the relative strength of rockets? Isn't this the kind of competition you want?"

"On 27 October 1970, the administration of president Richard Nixon passed the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act, as part of their "war on drugs". According to journalist Dan Baum writing in Harper's Magazine, a Nixon adviser, John Ehrlichman, later admitted to him in an interview: "The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and Black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or Black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and Blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.""

"Principled Republicans were pivotal in rejecting the amorality of Richard Nixon, ejecting him from the White House in 1974. In contrast, only a handful of today's House or Senate Republicans supported Trump's impeachment for the attempted decapitation of American democracy on Jan. 6, 2021. That shift signals that Nixon's dark amorality now permeates the party, a mania enabled by conservative billionaires and Rupert Murdock's laudatory Fox News and Wall Street Journal. Like Richard Nixon, today's Republican leaders refuse to draw red lines, cruelly accepting avoidable deaths among the party faithful as merely a price to be paid for political gain. Thousands of party leaders are mimicking the cruelty and pathologies of Nixon in seeking political advantage -- but on a far larger scale that dwarfs his Vietnam brutality. DeSantis certainly reflects this generalized devolution. But history suggests that DeSantis may well fade like Jeb Bush, Scott Walker and others, his front-runner status only temporary. The real challenge for America is how to purge the Republican Party of Richard Nixon."

"The good news for DeSantis is that Nixon won election as president despite also having a combative and unlikable personality. The bad news for him is that voters in 1968 were unaware of Nixon's cruel streak. Fearful that his opponent, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, would gain from peace in Vietnam, Nixon secretly derailed peace talks then underway in Paris. His cynical act prolonged the war by five years, ruthlessly adding more than 20,000 additional American deaths, plus hundreds of thousands of additional Vietnamese deaths. In contrast to Nixon, DeSantis' cruel streak is already evident to voters. It includes demonizing LGBTQ youths. He is mimicking Russia's Putin, Hungary's Viktor Orban and others throughout history who similarly sought political advantage attacking the vulnerable -- the Irish, Rohingyas, Jews, African Americans, Uyghurs and now the LGBTQ community."

"Commentators portray Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as a more organized and calculating Donald Trump. In reality, DeSantis most resembles Richard Nixon -- disciplined, stiff and intense. Both lack Trump's charisma and ease before voters. Also unlike Trump -- but very much like Nixon -- DeSantis effectively deploys powers of the state for political gain. And DeSantis also mimics Nixon's cruelty, his willingness to place constituents in harm's way in the pursuit of political gain."

"I’ll never forget: When that happened, we had such great support. Nixon had no support. You know, he just didn’t have support. He was very, very tough with people. I get along with people. I mean, I have great Jim Jordan, and all these congressmen are great. They’re really incredible people."

"Nixon is a shifty-eyed goddamn liar. He's one of the few in the history of this country to run for high office talking out of both sides of his mouth at the same time and lying out of both sides."

"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 just to keep his hand in."

"I've been called worse things by better people."

"SUBJECT: THE DEATH OF RICHARD NIXON: NOTES ON THE PASSING OF AN AMERICAN MONSTER.... HE WAS A LIAR AND A QUITTER, AND HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN BURIED AT SEA.... BUT HE WAS, AFTER ALL, THE PRESIDENT."

"Let there be no mistake in the history books about that. Richard Nixon was an evil man--evil in a way that only those who believe in the physical reality of the Devil can understand it. He was utterly without ethics or morals or any bedrock sense of decency. Nobody trusted him--except maybe the Stalinist Chinese, and honest historians will remember him mainly as a rat who kept scrambling to get back on the ship."

"He could shake your hand and stab you in the back at the same time. 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."

"He accepted the realities of the world and would have gone down as a great President if it had not been for the trivial scandal of the Watergate."

"The U.S. have a damned good President or had until recently... Nixon has done things that were beyond the much praised John Kennedy and certainly beyond the late Lyndon B. Johnson. Nixon has ended the Cold War."

"[Richard Nixon has] always had the gift, as he showed in the Hiss affair, of seeing the simple truth where others saw only complications. And he has always been ready to learn from experience."

"While Nixon was known for his “Enemies List,” the former head of the National Security Agency’s global digital data gathering program says that Obama also has an enemies list stored by keyword, which has been used to take down perceived political enemies such as General Petraus. During his re-election campaign Obama even brazenly posted his enemies list on-line as a not-so-subtle threat not to donate to his opponents. How Nixon’s critics would have howled if he had publicly targeted Sen. George McGovern’s donors. Because of Obama’s iconic status on the left, liberals are silent as Obama shreds the Constitution in ways Richard Nixon would have marveled at. Democrats scoff at the notion of the impeachment of Obama for crimes far more serious and reaching than of those committed by Richard Nixon."

"Nixon’s impeachment included the charge that he evaded Congress’ sole authority to declare war by bombing Cambodia. Yet in Libya Obama said that only he had the inherent authority to decide what is a “war” and that no congressional approval was necessary. He proceeded to bomb Libya, destroy its military and spend more than a billion dollars in borrowed money in support of one side, who was not aligned with the United States, in a civil war. Nixon’s men considered the murder of investigative journalist Jack Anderson. That’s nothing compared with Obama’s assertion that he has right to kill any U.S. citizen without a charge, let alone conviction."

"The White House tapes show Nixon attempting to use the CIA to impede the FBI investigation into the Watergate break-in. This pales in comparison to the CIA spying on members of the US Senate charged with investigating the Agency's illegal activities. Where is liberal outrage over Obama’s Justice Department spying on reporters? What would have happened if Nixon's Justice Department had opened the mail and tracked the movements of Walter Cronkite as Obama’s Justice department did with Fox’s News' James Rosen?"

"Nixon’s men illegally wiretapped his political opponents -- and they went to jail for it. When the FBI used warrantless surveillance to wiretap and intercept the mail of anti-war radicals, those who did so were charged, tried and convicted. Obama has used the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to guarantee any surveillance the government wants without probable cause. Nixon spied on a virtual hand-full. Barack Obama’ s NSA wire-taps the entire nation and monitors the e-mails of thousands. Nixon talked about using the IRS to harass his opponents but there is no evidence that he successfully did so, yet illegal use of the IRS was among the Articles of Impeachment voted by the House of Representatives. Obama’s IRS has actually used the IRS to harass conservative groups. Can you imagine the liberal outcry if IRS officials under Nixon referred to liberals as “a—holes’ and “crazies”?"

"Forty years ago public outrage about the actions of President Richard Milhous Nixon, lead by his long time liberal critics, forced him to be the first U.S. chief executive to resign the presidency. Critics screamed about Nixon’s extra-legal and extra-constitutional conduct as protestors ringed the White House chanting "Jail to the Chief." Nixon’s men had spied on their fellow citizens, allegedly used the IRS to harass their political enemies, waged war without the consent of Congress and used the CIA in an effort to hide their crimes. No man, Nixon’s critics assured us, was above the law. For his transgressions, Richard Nixon was forced from office, evading prosecution only because of a presidential pardon. Yet by any reasonable measure, Nixon’s sins seem venal compared to those of President Barack Obama."

"The President wants me to argue that he is as powerful a monarch as Louis XIV, only four years at a time, and is not subject to the processes of any court in the land except the court of impeachment."

"Today is a time of much historical revisionism. We look for sins in the lives of saints. I understand this tendency—greatness doesn’t excuse evil. To worship another human is to forget who a human being is in the first place. But the truth goes both ways. What about finding the good in disgraced figures? What moral lessons might we gleam from such an exercise? I am not talking about dictators, or mass murderers, or perverse evildoers. I am talking about Richard Nixon. I am talking about our presidents, our parents, our favorite characters, our friends, our artists, and our acquaintances. People who make great mistakes but also do great good. People who say prejudiced things and then do justice. People who are human. What are we to make of such people? Richard Nixon, by many accounts, was a mean man. But there was good in him. More importantly, there was good he did. And that’s worth remembering."

"There are moral intentions and there are moral consequences. The floral consequences of Richard Nixon’s presidency—most of which are overshadowed by Watergate—contradict his intentions. Would the opposite be any better? The revolutions of the 20th century—of Mao Zedong and Joseph Stalin—attest to the grotesque transformations of the most moral intentions. The unrelenting ocean of history washes away our motives, our hopes, our dreams. All that remains is our actions. And we will remember Nixon’s actions: his biggest mistake, the scandal which will forever define his presidency and life. But if we dig through his legacy, we would find gems which shine brighter in today’s light."