A man is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.
The real sting here lies in what Nixon distinguishes—defeat and quitting are not the same animal, and that gap between them is where character lives. Most of us understand that losing a battle doesn't end the war, but fewer recognize that the moment we *decide* to stop trying is the actual point of no return, the one entirely within our control. A business failure, a failed marriage, a health setback—none of these finishes you unless you consent to being finished. Nixon, who experienced both humiliating political defeat and the temptation to disappear entirely, spoke from bitter knowledge that the person who gets up one more time than they fell is the one who writes history.