Richard Nixon Sport Quotes

American football

"In the spirit of American football at its best, let's always try to be number one, because we owe it to ourselves, we owe it to our country. Second, in the spirit of American football, let's be for our team, let's be for our country. As we look at this country, when we hear people say America is an ugly country, let's stand up and answer. Let's say this is a beautiful country, and the glory of it is that we have the great opportunity to make it even more beautiful in the years to come."

Win or lose

"It just isn't talent, it isn't physical ability, but that spirit makes a great difference in whether you win or lose."

Don't quit

"Sometimes you will apply for a job and you won't get it and you will think it is the greatest setback, but just remember it isn't losing that is wrong; it is quitting. Don't quit. Don't ever quit. Keep trying, because this country need the very best that you, the young generation of America, can give to it."

Coach Lombardi's life

"The lesson all Americans can learn from Coach Lombardi's life is that a man can become a star when, above all else, he becomes an apostle of teamwork."

Great team

"They're a great team. They know how to win and they know how to lose."

Do your best

"Unless you try to do your best, unless you give everything that you have to your life and in the service of your country, then you have not been the man or the woman that you can be."

Team

"Well first, Frank, as President I have to be very nonpartisan, and when I go to a game, consequently, it is very difficult because I like to be for a team, for a man or a for a team. I don't mean being so much against the other team, but for somebody I know. What I have now decided is the best rule is to be for the team in the city that I happen to be living."

Common interest

"What does this mean, this common interest in football of Presidents, of leaders, of people generally? It means a competitive spirit. It means, also, to me, the ability and the determination to be able to lose and then come back and try again, to sit on the bench and the come back. It means basically the character, the drive, the pride, the teamwork, the feeling of being in a cause bigger than yourself. All of these great factors are essential if a nation is to maintain character and greatness for that nation. So, in the 100th year of football, as we approach the 200th year of the United States remember that our great assets are not our military strength or our economic wealth, but the character of our young people, and I am glad that America's young people produce the kind of men that we have in American football today."

What really proves

"What really proves that a person or a team or a country has it is not when it is winning and everybody is with it and everybody is cheering it on, but when it has lost one and it does not lose its spirit, it comes back, it comes back and goes on to win."

Spirit

"What we need in the spirit of this country and the spirit of our young people is not playing it safe always, not being afraid of defeat, being ready to get into the battle and playing to win, not with the idea of destroying or defeating or hurting anybody else, but with the idea of achieving excellence."

More Nixon Quotes about Sports