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Time & Perspective Quote by Richard M. Nixon

"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"

About this Quote

Nixon’s jab at golf lands because it’s not really about golf. It’s a weaponized piece of time accounting: seven hours, tallied like a budget item, turned into an indictment. Coming from a president whose public life was measured in crises, briefings, and televised persuasion, the line frames leisure as a kind of moral failure, or at least an aesthetic one. The rhetorical trick is that it sounds like practical advice, but it’s also a subtle assertion of authority: I know what your time is worth, and I’m telling you you’re spending it wrong.

The subtext is classic Nixonian resentment toward elite rituals. Golf is coded as country-club ease, a pastime of networks and soft power. Nixon, who never fully shook the sense of being an outsider among the well-born, turns the sport into a symbol of complacency. “Better things” stays conveniently vague, letting the listener project virtue onto work, family, service, or ambition. The ambiguity is the point: it’s a scold without a syllabus.

Context sharpens the irony. Presidential golf has long functioned as both therapy and theater, a way to appear relaxed while still projecting command. Nixon’s dismissal reads like an attempt to differentiate himself from predecessors and rivals who used the links as a stage set for leadership. The line also carries a defensive edge: when you’re under scrutiny, leisure becomes evidence. In Nixon’s hands, the critique isn’t just about wasted hours; it’s about controlling the narrative of seriousness.

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APA Style (7th ed.)
Nixon, Richard M. (n.d.). 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. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/by-the-time-you-get-dressed-drive-out-there-play-1398/

Chicago Style
Nixon, Richard M. "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." FixQuotes. Accessed February 2, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/by-the-time-you-get-dressed-drive-out-there-play-1398/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"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." FixQuotes, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/by-the-time-you-get-dressed-drive-out-there-play-1398/. Accessed 2 Feb. 2026.

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Richard M. Nixon

Richard M. Nixon (January 9, 1913 - April 22, 1994) was a President from USA.

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