Are you better off now than you were four years ago?
– Ronald Reagan
We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.
– Ronald Reagan
If more government is the answer, then it was a really stupid question.
– Ronald Reagan
If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we…
If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under.
– Ronald Reagan
Let us be sure that those who come after will say of us in our time, that in our time we did everything that could be done. We finished the race; we kept them free; we kept the faith.
– Ronald Reagan
All great change in America begins at the dinner table.
– Ronald Reagan
You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man’s age-old dream — the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order –or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path.
– Ronald Reagan
The time has come to turn to God and reassert our trust in Him for the healing of America – our country is in need of and ready for a spiritual renewal.
– Ronald Reagan
I know in my heart that man is good. That what is right will always eventually triumph. And there’s purpose and worth to each and every life.
– Ronald Reagan
The future doesn’t belong to the light-hearted. It belongs to the brave.
– Ronald Reagan
Make no mistake, abortion-on-demand is not a right granted by the Constitution. No serious scholar, including one disposed to agree with the Court’s result, has argued that the framers of the Constitution intended to create such a right.
– Ronald Reagan
Evil is powerless if the good are unafraid.
– Ronald Reagan
Where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost.
– Ronald Reagan
The . . . inescapable truth is: government does not have all the answers. In too many instances, government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.
– Ronald Reagan
Let me make our goal . . . very clear: jobs, jobs, jobs, and more jobs . . . . Our policy has been and will continue to be: What is good for the American workers is good for America.
– Ronald Reagan
I think the presidency is an institution over which you have temporary custody.
– Ronald Reagan
Our liberties, our values, all for which America stands is safe today because brave men and women have been ready to face the fire at freedom’s front. And we thank God for them.
– Ronald Reagan
Politics and morality are inseparable. And as morality’s foundation is religion, religion and politics are necessarily related. We need religion as a guide. We need it because we are imperfect, and our government needs the church, because only those humble enough to admit they’re sinners can bring to democracy the tolerance it requires in order to survive.
– Ronald Reagan
For an America of wisdom that honors the family, knowing that if the family goes, so goes our civilization.
– Ronald Reagan
I have seen the rise of fascism and communism. Both philosophies glorify the arbitrary power of the state… But both theories fail. Both deny those God-given liberties that are the inalienable right of each person on this planet, indeed, they deny the existence of God.
– Ronald Reagan
The Soviet Union is the focus of evil in the modern world.
– Ronald Reagan
An America that is militarily and economically strong is not enough. The world must see an America that is morally strong with a creed and a vision. This is what has led us to dare and achieve. For us, values count.
– Ronald Reagan
One day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.
– Ronald Reagan
I think it’s time we ask ourselves if we still know the freedoms that were intended for us by the Founding Fathers… Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them for ourselves.
– Ronald Reagan
But in the West today, we see a free world that has achieved a level of prosperity and well-being unprecedented in all human history. In the Communist world, we see failure, technological backwardness, declining standards of health, even want of the most basic kind – too little food. Even today, the Soviet Union still cannot feed itself. After these four decades, then, there stands before the entire world one great and inescapable conclusion: Freedom leads to prosperity. Freedom replaces the ancient hatreds among the nations with comity and peace. Freedom is the victor.
– Ronald Reagan
Here’s my strategy on the Cold War: we win, they lose.
– Ronald Reagan
America stands unique in the world: the only country not founded on race but on a way, an ideal. Not in spite of but because of our polyglot background, we have had all the strength in the world. That is the American way.
– Ronald Reagan
Where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost.
– Ronald Reagan
I thought the function of the government was to promote the general welfare, not to provide it.
– Ronald Reagan
To many of us now, computers, silicon chips, data processing, cybernetics, and all the other innovations of the dawning high technology age are as mystifying as the workings of the combustion engine must have been when that first Model T rattled down Main Street, U.S.A. But as surely as America’s pioneer spirit made us the industrial giant of the 20th century, the same pioneer spirit today is opening up on another vast front of opportunity, the frontier of high technology.
– Ronald Reagan
America is a melting pot, and education has been a mainspring for our democracy and freedom, a means of providing gifts of knowledge and opportunity to all citizens, no matter how humble their background, so they could climb higher, help build the American dream, and leave a better life for those who follow.
– Ronald Reagan
We’re Americans, and we have a rendezvous with destiny . . . No people who have ever lived on this earth have fought harder, paid a higher price for freedom, or done more to advance the dignity of man than Americans.
– Ronald Reagan
There is a fundamental difference between separation of church and state and denying the spiritual heritage of this country. Inscribed on the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C. are Jefferson’s words, ‘The God Who gave us life gave us liberty — can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?’
– Ronald Reagan
We’re the party that wants to see an America in which people can still get rich.
– Ronald Reagan
We’re told about a woman’s right to control her own body. But doesn’t the unborn child have a higher right, and that is to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?
– Ronald Reagan
One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It’s very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project, most people are a little reluctant to oppose anything that suggests medical care for people who possibly can’t afford it.
– Ronald Reagan
All systems are capitalist. It’s just a matter of who owns and controls the capital — ancient king, dictator, or private individual. We should properly be looking at the contrast between a free market system where individuals have the right to live like kings if they have the ability to earn that right and government control of the market system such as we find today in socialist nations.
– Ronald Reagan
I welcome this chance to further strengthen the unbreakable ties between the United States and Israel and to assure you of our commitment to Israel’s security and well-being. Israel and America may be thousands of miles apart, but we are philosophical neighbors sharing a strong commitment to democracy and the rule of law. What we hold in common are the bonds of trust and friendship, qualities that in our eyes make Israel a great nation. No people have fought longer, struggled harder, or sacrificed more than yours in order to survive, to grow, and to live in freedom
– Ronald Reagan
Wouldn’t it be better for the human spirit and for the soul of this nation to encourage people to accept more responsibility to care for each other rather than leaving those tasks to paid bureaucrats.
– Ronald Reagan
Americans are hungering to feel proud and patriotic again.
– Ronald Reagan
. . . Government should do only those things the people cannot do for themselves.
– Ronald Reagan
We hear much of special interest groups. Well, our concern must be for a special interest group that has been too long neglected. It knows no sectional boundaries or ethnic and racial divisions, and it crosses political party lines. It is made up of men and women who raise our food, patrol our streets, man our mines and factories, teach our children, keep our homes, and heal us when we’re sick – professionals, industrialists, shopkeepers, clerks, cabbies, and truck drivers. They are, in short, “We the people,” this breed called Americans.
– Ronald Reagan
History comes and history goes, but principles endure, and ensure future generations will defend liberty not as a gift from government but as a blessing from our Creator.
– Ronald Reagan
It’s not that liberals aren’t smart, it’s just that so much of what they know isn’t so
– Ronald Reagan
We now know that inflation results from all that deficit spending.
– Ronald Reagan
It is the Soviet Union that runs against the tide of history . . . . [It is] the march of freedom and democracy which will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of history, as it has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people.
– Ronald Reagan
Anybody from any corner of the world can come to America to live and become an American.
– Ronald Reagan
Are you entitled to the fruits of your own labor or does government have some presumptive right to spend and spend and spend?
– Ronald Reagan
I’ve been told that some members of Congress disagree with my tax cut proposal. Well, you know it’s been said that taxation is the art of plucking feathers without killing the bird. It’s time they realized the bird just doesn’t have any feathers left.
– Ronald Reagan
My fellow citizens, our nation is poised for greatness. We must do what we know is right, and do it with all our might. Let history say of us: “These were golden years – when the American Revolution was reborn, when freedom gained new life, and America reached for her best.”
– Ronald Reagan
The NRA believes America’s laws were made to be obeyed and that our Constitutional liberties are just as important today as 200 years ago. And by the way, the Constitution does not say Government shall decree the right to keep and bear arms. The Constitution says ‘The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.’
– Ronald Reagan
Liberals are people who think that being tough on crime means longer suspended sentences.
– Ronald Reagan
Conservatives were brought up to hate deficits and justifiably so. We’ve long thought there are two things in Washington that are unbalanced – the budget and the liberals.
– Ronald Reagan
Elvis epitomised America, and for that we shall be eternally grateful. There will never be anyone else like him. Let’s all rejoice in his music.
– Ronald Reagan
[A woman waiting for him in the Kremlin asked Gobachev] “Was communism invented by a politician or a scientist?” [He replied] “Well, a politician.” She said, “That explains it. The scientist would have tried it on mice first.”
– Ronald Reagan
Our Founding Fathers well understood that concentrated power is the enemy of liberty and the rights of man. They knew that the American experiment in individual liberty, free enterprise and republican self-government could succeed only if power were widely distributed. And since in any society social and political power flow from economic power, they saw that wealth and property would have to be widely distributed among the people of the country. The truth of this insight is immediately apparent.
– Ronald Reagan
We know that this mad dog of the Middle East has a goal of a world revolution. (On Muammar Qaddafi of Libya)
– Ronald Reagan
For the average American, the message is clear. Liberalism is no longer the answer. It is the problem.
– Ronald Reagan
With freedom comes responsibility, a responsibility that can only be met by the individual.
– Ronald Reagan
By 1980, we knew it was time to renew our faith, to strive with all our strength toward the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with an orderly society. We believed then and now there are no limits to growth and human progress when men and women are free to follow their dreams.
– Ronald Reagan
In an ironic sense, Karl Marx was right. We are witnessing today a great revolutionary crisis, a crisis where the demands of the economic order are conflicting directly with those of the political order. But the crisis is happening not in the . . . West, but in the home of Marxism-Leninism, the Soviet Union. It is the Soviet Union that runs against the tide of history by denying human freedom and human dignity to its citizens.
– Ronald Reagan
[The Soviets] preach the supremacy of the state, declare its omnipotence over individual man, and predict its eventual domination of all peoples on the earth; they are the focus of evil in the modern world.
– Ronald Reagan
Yes, deficits are a problem. I’ve been saying so for more than a quarter of a century now. But the problem is not the size of the deficit, it’s the size of government’s claim on our economy.
– Ronald Reagan
The Founding Fathers believed that faith in God was the key to our being a good people and America’s becoming a great nation.
– Ronald Reagan
I believe that communism is another sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages even now are being written. I believe this because the source of our strength in the quest for human freedom is not material, but spiritual. And because it knows no limitation, it must terrify and ultimately triumph over those who would enslave their fellow men.
– Ronald Reagan
Revenues should be increased not by increasing the tax rates on the individual but by building a bigger economy for everybody.
– Ronald Reagan
The difference between them and us is that we want to check government spending and they want to spend government checks.
– Ronald Reagan
Two Soviets . . . were talking to each other. And one of them asked, “What’s the difference between the Soviet Constitution and the United States Constitution?” And the other one said, “That’s easy. The Soviet Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of gathering. The American Constitution guarantees freedom after speech and freedom after gathering.”
– Ronald Reagan
Coersion, after all, merely captures man. Freedom captivates him.
– Ronald Reagan
[Our goal] is to help revive America’s traditional values: faith, family, neighborhood, work and freedom. Government has no business enforcing these values but neither must it seek, as it did in the recent past, to suppress or replace them. That only robbed us of our tiller and set us adrift. Helping to restore these values will bring new strength, direction and dignity to our lives and to the life of our nation. It’s on these values that we’ll best build our future.
– Ronald Reagan
God, the source of all knowledge, should never have been expelled from our children’s classrooms.
– Ronald Reagan
Baseball is our national pastime, that is if you discount political campaigning.
– Ronald Reagan
Where others fear trade and economic growth, we see opportunities for creating new wealth and undreamed-of opportunities for millions in our own land and beyond. Where others seek to throw up barriers, we seek to bring them down; where others take counsel of their fears, we follow our hopes.
– Ronald Reagan
My belief has always been… that wherever in this land any individual’s constitutional rights are being unjustly denied, it is the obligation of the federal government-at point of bayonet if necessary-to restore that individual’s constitutional rights
– Ronald Reagan
Our nation was built and civilized by men and women who used guns in self-defense and in pursuit of peace. One wonders indeed, if the rising crime rate, isn’t due as much as anything to the criminal’s instinctive knowledge that the average victim no longer has means of self-protection.
– Ronald Reagan
It was the hard work of our people, the freedom they enjoyed and their faith in God that built this country and made it the envy of the world. In all of our great cities and towns evidence of the faith of our people is found: houses of worship of every denomination are among the oldest structures. While never willing to bow to a tyrant, our forefathers were always willing to get to their knees before God. When catastrophe threatened, they turned to God for deliverance. When the harvest was bountiful the first thought was thanksgiving to God.
– Ronald Reagan
An actor knows two important things – to be honest in what he is doing and to be in touch with the audience. That’s not bad advice for a politician either.
– Ronald Reagan
For us to ignore by inaction the slaughter of American civilians and American soldiers, whether in nightclubs or airline terminals, is simply not in the American tradition. Self-defense is not only our right, it is our duty.
– Ronald Reagan
The frustrating thing is that those who are attacking religion claim they are doing it in the name of tolerance, freedom and openmindedness. Question: Isn’t the real truth that they are intolerant of religion? They refuse to tolerate its importance in our lives.
– Ronald Reagan
If the family goes, so goes our civilization.
– Ronald Reagan
Since the foundation of the State of Israel, the United States has stood by her and helped her to pursue security, peace, and economic growth. Our friendship is based on historic moral and strategic ties, as well as our shared dedication to democracy.
– Ronald Reagan
Balancing your budget is like protecting your virtue. You have to learn when to say no.
– Ronald Reagan
Good citizenship and defending democracy means living up to the ideals and values that make this country great.
– Ronald Reagan
An old Russian woman goes into Kremlin, gets an audience with Mikhail Gorbachev and says, In America anyone can go to the White House, walk up to Reagan’s desk and say, ‘I don’t like the way you are running the country.’ Gorbachev replied, You can do the same thing in the Soviet Union. You can go into the Kremlin, walk up to my desk and say ‘I don’t like the way Reagan is running his country.’
– Ronald Reagan
Unless and until it can be proven that an unborn child is not a human being, can we justify assuming without proof that it isn’t? No one has yet offered such proof; indeed, all the evidence is to the contrary. We should rise above bitterness and reproach, and if Americans could come together in a spirit of understanding and helping, then we could find positive solutions to the tragedy of abortion.
– Ronald Reagan
If we get the federal government out of the classroom, maybe we’ll get God back in.
– Ronald Reagan
There is purpose and worth to each and every life.
– Ronald Reagan
When those who are governed do too little, those who govern can – and often will – do too much.
– Ronald Reagan
This is not the time for political fun and games. This is the time for a new beginning. I ask you now to put aside any feelings of frustration or helplessness about our political institutions and join me in this dramatic but responsible plan to reduce the enormous burden of Federal taxation on you and your family.
– Ronald Reagan
There is a mandate to impose a voluntary return to traditional values.
– Ronald Reagan
But in the West today, we see a free world that has achieved a level of prosperity and well-being unprecedented in all human history. In the Communist world, we see failure, technological backwardness, declining standards of health, even want of the most basic kind – too little food. Even today, the Soviet Union still cannot feed itself. After these four decades, then, there stands before the entire world one great and inescapable conclusion: Freedom leads to prosperity. Freedom replaces the ancient hatreds among the nations with comity and peace. Freedom is the victor.
– Ronald Reagan
An America that is militarily and economically strong is not enough. The world must see an America that is morally strong with a creed and a vision. This is what has led us to dare and achieve. For us, values count.
– Ronald Reagan
Let me make our goal . . . very clear: jobs, jobs, jobs, and more jobs . . . . Our policy has been and will continue to be: What is good for the American workers is good for America.
– Ronald Reagan
The Soviet Union is the focus of evil in the modern world.
– Ronald Reagan
For an America of wisdom that honors the family, knowing that if the family goes, so goes our civilization.
– Ronald Reagan
Politics and morality are inseparable. And as morality’s foundation is religion, religion and politics are necessarily related. We need religion as a guide. We need it because we are imperfect, and our government needs the church, because only those humble enough to admit they’re sinners can bring to democracy the tolerance it requires in order to survive.
– Ronald Reagan
The . . . inescapable truth is: government does not have all the answers. In too many instances, government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.
– Ronald Reagan
Our liberties, our values, all for which America stands is safe today because brave men and women have been ready to face the fire at freedom’s front. And we thank God for them.
– Ronald Reagan
I have seen the rise of fascism and communism. Both philosophies glorify the arbitrary power of the state… But both theories fail. Both deny those God-given liberties that are the inalienable right of each person on this planet, indeed, they deny the existence of God.
– Ronald Reagan
I think the presidency is an institution over which you have temporary custody.
– Ronald Reagan
The federal government has taken too much tax money from the people, too much authority from the states, and too much liberty with the Constitution.
– Ronald Reagan
There are no great limits to growth because there are no limits of human intelligence, imagination, and wonder.
– Ronald Reagan
Without God, there is no virtue because there is no prompting of the conscience… without God, there is a coarsening of the society; without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure.
– Ronald Reagan
We must be cautious in claiming God is on our side. I think the real question we must answer is, are we on His side?
– Ronald Reagan
Our tax policy is engineered by people who view tax as a means of achieving changes in our social structure.
– Ronald Reagan
We were poor when I was young but the difference was that the government didn’t come around telling you you were poor.
– Ronald Reagan
America is still an eagle, and she’s ready to soar again.
– Ronald Reagan
Going around this country, I have found a great hunger in America for spiritual revival; for a belief that law must be based on a higher law; for a return to traditions and values that we once had. Our government, in its most sacred documents – the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence and all – speak of man being created, of a Creator; that we’re a nation under God.
– Ronald Reagan
When a business or an individual spends more than it makes, it goes bankrupt. When government does it, it sends you the bill. And when government does it for 40 years, the bill comes in two ways: higher taxes and inflation. Make no mistake about it, inflation is a tax and not by accident.
– Ronald Reagan
Government is not the solution, but rather the cause of our problems.
– Ronald Reagan
The United States and the freedom for which it stands, the freedom for which they died, must endure and prosper. Their lives remind us that freedom is not bought cheaply. It has a cost; it imposes a burden. And just as they whom we commemorate were willing to sacrifice, so too must we – in a less final, less heroic way – be willing to give of ourselves.
– Ronald Reagan
We can’t help everyone, but everyone can help someone.
– Ronald Reagan
Welfare’s purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence.
– Ronald Reagan
We in government should learn to look at our country with the eyes of the entrepreneur, seeing possibilities where others see only problems
– Ronald Reagan
We who live in free market societies believe that growth, prosperity and ultimately human fulfillment, are created from the bottom up, not the government down.
– Ronald Reagan
The family has always been the cornerstone of American society. Our families nurture, preserve, and pass on to each succeeding generation the values we share and cherish, values that are the foundation of our freedoms.
– Ronald Reagan
Well, it [evolution] is a theory, it is a scientific theory only, and it has in recent years been challenged in the world of science and is not yet believed in the scientific community to be as infallible as it once was believed. But if it was going to be taught in the schools, then I think that also the biblical theory of creation, which is not a theory but the biblical story of creation, should also be taught.
– Ronald Reagan
I believe that the most essential element of our defense of freedom is our insistence on speaking out for the cause of religious liberty.
– Ronald Reagan
We don’t need more politicians insisting we have deficits because you’re not taxed enough. Those deficits ballooned from an economy that didn’t grow enough and from 50 years of government spending too much.
– Ronald Reagan
Live simply, love generously, care deeply, speak kindly, leave the rest to God.
– Ronald Reagan
Within the covers of the Bible are the answers for all the problems men face.
– Ronald Reagan
We’re in greater danger today than we were the day after Pearl Harbor. Our military is absolutely incapable of defending this country.
– Ronald Reagan
This country was founded and built by people with great dreams and the courage to take great risks.
– Ronald Reagan
We must realize that no arsenal or no weapon in arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today’s world do not have. It is a weapon that we as Americans do have. Let that be understood by those who practice terrorism and prey upon their neighbors. As for the enemies of freedom, those who are potential adversaries, they will be reminded that peace is the highest aspiration of the American people. We will negotiate for it, sacrifice for it; We will not surrender for it, now or ever. We are Americans.
– Ronald Reagan
I’m proud of having been one of the first to recognize that states and the federal government have a duty to protect our natural resources from the damaging effects of pollution that can accompany industrial development.
– Ronald Reagan
And we’re also remembering the guiding light of our Judeo-Christian tradition. All of us here today are descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, sons and daughters of the same God. I believe we are bound by faith in our God, by our love for family and neighborhood, by our deep desire for a more peaceful world, and by our commitment to protect the freedom which is our legacy as Americans. These values have given a renewed sense of worth to our lives. They are infusing America with confidence and optimism that many thought we had lost…
– Ronald Reagan
Freedom prospers only where the blessings of God are avidly sought, and humbly accepted.
– Ronald Reagan
Freedom is not the sole prerogative of a chosen few, but the universal right of all God’s children.
– Ronald Reagan
Throughout America today, we honor the dead of our wars. We recall their valor and their sacrifices. We remember they gave their lives so that others might live.
– Ronald Reagan
America was founded by people who believe that God was their rock of safety. I recognize we must be cautious in claiming that God is on our side, but I think it’s all right to keep asking if we’re on His side.
– Ronald Reagan
Let the Fourth of July always be a reminder that here in this land, for the first time, it was decided that man is born with certain God-given rights; that government is only a convenience created and managed by the people, with no powers of its own except those voluntarily granted to it by the people. We sometimes forget that great truth, and we never should. Happy Fourth of July.
– Ronald Reagan
More than a decade ago, a Supreme Court decision literally wiped off the books of fifty states statutes protecting the rights of unborn children. Abortion on demand now takes the lives of up to 1.5 million unborn children a year. Human life legislation ending this tragedy will some day pass the Congress, and you and I must never rest until it does. Unless and until it can be proven that the unborn child is not a living entity, then its right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness must be protected.
– Ronald Reagan
The American dream is not that every man must be level with every other man. The American dream is that every man must be free to become whatever God intends he should become.
– Ronald Reagan
I believe no challenge is more important to the character of America than restoring the right to life to all human beings.
– Ronald Reagan
You won’t get gun control by disarming law-abiding citizens. There’s only one way to get real gun control: Disarm the thugs and the criminals, lock them up and if you don’t actually throw away the key, at least lose it for a long time… It’s a nasty truth, but those who seek to inflict harm are not fazed by gun controllers. I happen to know this from personal experience.
– Ronald Reagan
If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals — if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.
– Ronald Reagan
Entrepreneurs are the forgotten heroes of America.
– Ronald Reagan
Extreme taxation, excessive controls, oppressive government competition with business, frustrated minorities and forgotten Americans are not the products of free enterprise. They are the residue of centralized bureaucracy, of government by a self-anointed elite.
– Ronald Reagan
Make no mistake, abortion-on-demand is not a right granted by the Constitution. No serious scholar, including one disposed to agree with the Court’s result, has argued that the framers of the Constitution intended to create such a right.
– Ronald Reagan
There are no limits to growth and human progress
when men and women are free to follow their dreams.
– Ronald Reagan
When our Founding Fathers passed the First Amendment, they sought to protect churches from government interference. They never intended to construct a wall of hostility between government and the concept of religious belief itself.
– Ronald Reagan
How can we not believe in the greatness of America? How can we not do what is right and needed to preserve this last best hope of man on Earth? After all our struggles to restore America, to revive confidence in our country, hope for our future – after all our hard-won victories earned through the patience and courage of every citizen – we cannot, must not, and will not turn. We will finish our job. How could we do less? We’re Americans.
– Ronald Reagan
Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. Those who have known freedom, and then lost it, have never known it again.
– Ronald Reagan
But the simple truth is that we’ve lost control of our own borders, and no nation can do that and survive.
– Ronald Reagan
As government expands, liberty contracts.
– Ronald Reagan
Freedom is the very essence of our nation. To be sure, ours is not a perfect nation. But even with our troubles, we remain the beacon of hope for oppressed peoples everywhere. Never give up the fight for freedom – a fight which, though it may never end, is the most ennobling known to man.
– Ronald Reagan
Our leaders must remember that education doesn’t begin with some isolated bureaucrat in Washington. It doesn’t even begin with state or local officials. Education begins in the home, where it is a parental right and responsibility.
– Ronald Reagan
Those who have known freedom and then lost it, have never known it again
– Ronald Reagan
Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today’s world do not have.
– Ronald Reagan
I’ve noticed that everyone who is for abortion has already been born.
– Ronald Reagan
We are forever indebted to those who have given their lives that we might be free.
– Ronald Reagan
In our observances this Memorial Day, we honor the brave Americans who paid the highest price for their commitment to the ideals of peace, freedom, and justice. Our debt to them can be paid only by our own recommitment to preserving those same ideals.
– Ronald Reagan
Words are even more feeble on this Memorial Day, for the sight before us is that of a strong and good nation that stands in silence and remembers those who were loved and who, in return, loved their countrymen enough to die for them.
– Ronald Reagan
I’m convinced that today the majority of Americans want what those first Americans wanted: A better life for themselves and their children; a minimum of government authority.
– Ronald Reagan
Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.
– Ronald Reagan
There is no greater happiness for a man than approaching a door at the end of a day knowing someone on the other side of that door is waiting for the sound of his footsteps.
– Ronald Reagan
Peace is not absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means.
– Ronald Reagan
There can be no security anywhere in the free world if there is no fiscal and economic stability within the United States.
– Ronald Reagan
May all of you as Americans never forget your heroic origins, never fail to seek Divine guidance, and never lose your natural God-given optimism.
– Ronald Reagan
Great nations which fail to meet their responsibilities to God are consigned to the dust bin of history. We grew from that small, weak republic which had as its assets spirit, optimism, faith in God and an unshakeable belief that free men and women could govern themselves wisely. We became the leader of the free world, an example for all those who cherish freedom. If we are to continue to be that example-if we are to preserve our own freedom-we must understand those who would dominate us and deal with them with determination.
– Ronald Reagan
As we celebrate Thanksgiving, we should reflect on the full meaning of this day as we enjoy the fellowship that is so much a part of the holiday festivities. Searching our hearts, we should ask what we can do as individuals to demonstrate our gratitude to God for all He has done. Such reflection can only add to the significance of this precious day of remembrance.
– Ronald Reagan
I believe the best social program is a job.
– Ronald Reagan
General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
– Ronald Reagan
Simple morality dictates that unless and until someone can prove the unborn human is not alive, we must give it the benefit of the doubt and assume it is (alive). And, thus, it should be entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
– Ronald Reagan
Socialism only works in two places: Heaven where they don’t need it and hell where they already have it.
– Ronald Reagan
The price of freedom may be high, but never so costly as the loss of freedom.
– Ronald Reagan
Outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or economically as the private sector.
– Ronald Reagan
I also believe this blessed land was set apart in a very special way, a country created by men and women who came here not in search of gold, but in search of God. They would be free people, living under the law with faith in their Maker and their future. Sometimes, it seems we’ve strayed from that noble beginning, from our conviction that standards of right and wrong do exist and must be lived up to.
– Ronald Reagan
Individual liberty depends upon keeping government under control.
– Ronald Reagan
For the people of Israel and America are historic partners in the global quest for human dignity and freedom. We will always remain at each other’s side.
– Ronald Reagan
It is the tendency of Government to grow, for practices and programs to become the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll see on this earth.
– Ronald Reagan
America has begun a spiritual reawakening. Faith and hope are being restored. Americans are turning back to God. Church attendance is up. Audiences for religious books and broadcasts are growing. And I do believe that he has begun to heal our blessed land.
– Ronald Reagan
As long as there are guns, the individual that wants a gun for a crime is going to have one and going to get it. The only person who’s going to be penalized and have difficulty is the law-abiding citizen, who then cannot have [it] if he wants protection — the protection of a weapon in his home.
– Ronald Reagan
Families cannot prosper and keep America strong if government becomes a Goliath that preys upon their wealth, usurps their rights, and crushes their spirit.
– Ronald Reagan
Our National Motto – ‘In God We Trust’ – was not chosen lightly. It reflects a basic recognition that there is a divine authority in the universe to which this nation owes homage.
– Ronald Reagan
A hippie is someone who looks like Tarzan, walks like Jane and smells like Cheetah.
– Ronald Reagan
America is the moral force that defeated communism and all those who would put the human soul itself into bondage.
– Ronald Reagan
We need true tax reform that will at least make a start toward restoring for our children the American dream that wealth is denied to no one, that each individual has the right to fly as high as his strength and ability will take him.
– Ronald Reagan
We owe this freedom of choice and action to those men and women in uniform who have served this nation and its interests in time of need. In particular, we are forever indebted to those who have given their lives that we might be free.
– Ronald Reagan
Perhaps no custom reveals our character as a Nation so clearly as our celebration of Thanksgiving Day.
– Ronald Reagan
Freedom is the recognition that no single person, no single authority or government has a monopoly on the truth, but that every individual life is infinitely precious, that every one of us put in this world has been put there for a reason and has something to offer.
– Ronald Reagan
How do you tell a communist? Well, it’s someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It’s someone who understands Marx and Lenin.
– Ronald Reagan
Republicans believe every day is the Fourth of July, but the democrats believe every day is April 15.
– Ronald Reagan
To those who cite the first amendment as reason for excluding God from more and more of our institutions and everyday life, may I just say: The first amendment of the Constitution was not written to protect the people of this country from religious values; it was written to protect religious values from government tyranny.
– Ronald Reagan
When you can’t make them see the light, make them feel the heat.
– Ronald Reagan
The trouble with our Liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.
– Ronald Reagan
I’m not a politician by profession. I am a citizen who decided I had to be personally involved.
– Ronald Reagan
Terrorism is the preferred weapon of weak and evil men.
– Ronald Reagan
Every honor is appropriate for the courageous Americans who made the supreme sacrifice for our Nation at Pearl Harbor and in the many battles that followed in World War II. Their sacrifice was for a cause, not for conquest; for a world that would be safe for future generations. Their devotion must never be forgotten.
– Ronald Reagan
Government should uphold-and not undermine-those institutions which are custodians of the very values upon which civilization is founded: religion, education and, above all, family.
– Ronald Reagan
At the root of everything that we’re trying to accomplish is the belief that America has a mission. We are a nation of freedom, living under God, believing all citizens must have the opportunity to grow, create wealth, and build a better life for those who follow. If we live up to those moral values, we can keep the American dream alive for our children and our grandchildren, and America will remain mankind’s best hope.
– Ronald Reagan
Either you will control your government, or government will control you.
– Ronald Reagan
On Father’s Day, we pay tribute to all in our society who have taken on the responsibilitie s and joys of fatherhood. Whether our fathers are near at hand or a continent away, with their families or watching from the light of eternity, we take this day to remember them, to say our thanks for the years they have given us, and to ask that they receive God’s blessings.
– Ronald Reagan
What we don’t need is more spending, and what we don’t need are taxes, and what we do need is a lot less of both.
– Ronald Reagan
Our loyalty lies with little taxpayers, not big spenders. What our critics really believe is that those in Washington know better how to spend your money than you, the people, do. But we’re not going to let them do it, period.
– Ronald Reagan
We cannot survive as a free nation when some men decide that others are not fit to live and should be abandoned to abortion or infanticide…t here is no cause more important for preserving that freedom than affirming the transcendent right to life of all human beings, the right without which no other rights have any meaning.
– Ronald Reagan
We must have faith in the people of this country and faith in our principles.
– Ronald Reagan
Governments don’t reduce deficits by raising taxes on the people; governments reduce deficits by controlling spending and stimulating new wealth.
– Ronald Reagan
Socialists ignore the side of man that is the spirit. They can provide you shelter, fill your belly with bacon and beans, treat you when you’re ill, all the things guaranteed to a prisoner or a slave. They don’t understand that we also dream.
– Ronald Reagan
Let us renew our faith that as free men and women we still have the power to better our lives.
– Ronald Reagan
I know at times we feel that perhaps in our prayers we ask too much. Or possibly we feel something isn’t important enough to be bothering God with it. Maybe we should let Him decide these things.
– Ronald Reagan
Today we did what we had to do. They counted on America to be passive. They counted wrong.
– Ronald Reagan
The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things.
– Ronald Reagan
The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally – not a 20 percent traitor.
– Ronald Reagan
And let us never forget that in honoring our flag, we honor the American men and women who have courageously fought and died for it over the last 200 years, patriots who set an ideal above any consideration of self. Our flag flies free today because of their sacrifice.
– Ronald Reagan
Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty.
– Ronald Reagan
Inflation is as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber and as deadly as a hit man.
– Ronald Reagan
Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
– Ronald Reagan
We establish no religion in this country. We command no worship. We mandate no belief, nor will we ever. Church and state are and must remain separate.
– Ronald Reagan
Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong.
– Ronald Reagan
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.
– Ronald Reagan
If there’s one observation that rings true in today’s changing world, it is that freedom and peace go hand in hand.
– Ronald Reagan
Our opponents see an America in which every day is April 15, tax day. Well, we see an America in which every day is the Fourth of July.
– Ronald Reagan
We’ve been a free people living under the law, with faith in our Maker and in our future. I’ve said before that the most sublime picture in American history is of George Washington on his knees in the snow at Valley Forge. That image personifies a people who know that it’s not enough to depend on our own courage and goodness; we must also seek help from God, our Father and Preserver.
– Ronald Reagan
Entrepreneurs and their small enterprises are responsible for almost all the economic growth in the United States.
– Ronald Reagan
If you serve a child a rotten hamburger in America, federal, state, and local agencies will investigate you, summon you, close you down, whatever. But if you provide a child with a rotten education, nothing happens, except that you’re liable to be given more money to do it with. Well, we’ve discovered that money alone isn’t the answer.
– Ronald Reagan
Man is not free unless government is limited.
– Ronald Reagan
People do not make wars; governments do.
– Ronald Reagan
It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.
– Ronald Reagan
We’re here to mark that day in history when the Allied peoples joined in battle to reclaim this continent to liberty. For four long years, much of Europe had been under a terrible shadow. Free nations had fallen, Jews cried out in the camps, millions cried out for liberation. Europe was enslaved, and the world prayed for its rescue. Here in Normandy the rescue began. Here the Allies stood and fought against tyranny in a giant undertaking unparalleled in human history.
– Ronald Reagan
Recession is when a neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours.
– Ronald Reagan
The current tax code is a daily mugging.
– Ronald Reagan
And how stands the city on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure, and happier than it was 8 years ago. But more than that: After 200 years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she’s still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home.
– Ronald Reagan
Some people wonder all their lives if they’ve made a difference. The Marines don’t have that problem.
– Ronald Reagan
Money can’t buy happiness, but it will certainly get you a better class of memories.
– Ronald Reagan
The man who puts into the marriage only half
of what he owns will get that out.
– Ronald Reagan
I’m not smart enough to lie
– Ronald Reagan
Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book.
– Ronald Reagan
How can a president not be an actor?
– Ronald Reagan
Heroes may not be braver than anyone else. They’re just braver five minutes longer.
– Ronald Reagan
I can’t claim to know the words of all the national anthems in the world, but I don’t know of any other that ends with a question and a challenge as ours does: Does that flag still wave o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave? That is what we must all ask.
– Ronald Reagan
I’ve always believed that a lot of the trouble in the world would disappear if we were talking to each other instead of about each other.
– Ronald Reagan
Now back in 1927 an American socialist, Norman Thomas, six times candidate for president on the Socialist Party ticket, said the American people would never vote for socialism. But he said under the name of liberalism the American people will adopt every fragment of the socialist program.
– Ronald Reagan
I don’t believe in a government that protects us from ourselves.
– Ronald Reagan
If the Soviet Union let another political party come into existence, they would still be a one-party state, because everybody would join the other party.
– Ronald Reagan
The very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism.
– Ronald Reagan
Remember that every government service, every offer of government – financed security, is paid for in the loss of personal freedom… In the days to come, whenever a voice is raised telling you to let the government do it, analyze very carefully to see whether the suggested service is worth the personal freedom which you must forgo in return for such service.
– Ronald Reagan
A political party cannot be all things to all people. It must represent certain fundamental beliefs which must not be compromised to political expediency, or simply to swell its numbers.
– Ronald Reagan
Democracy is worth dying for, because it’s the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man.
– Ronald Reagan
I just have to believe that with love for our natural heritage and a firm resolve to preserve it with wisdom and care, we can and will give the American land to our children, not impaired, but enhanced. And in doing this, we’ll honor the great and loving God who gave us this land in the first place.
– Ronald Reagan
No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth!
– Ronald Reagan
The size of the federal budget is not an appropriate barometer of social conscience or charitable concern.
– Ronald Reagan
Government is not a solution to our problem government is the problem.
– Ronald Reagan
If the federal government had been around when the Creator was putting His hand to this state, Indiana wouldn’t be here. It’d still be waiting for an environmental impact statement.
– Ronald Reagan
In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem, government IS the problem. It isn’t so much that liberals are ignorant, it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.
– Ronald Reagan
I call upon the scientific community in our country, those who gave us nuclear weapons, to turn their great talents now to the cause of mankind and world peace: to give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete.
– Ronald Reagan
Intelligence reports say Castro is very worried about me. I’m very worried that we can’t come up with something to justify his worrying.
– Ronald Reagan
Each generation goes further than the generation preceding it because it stands on the shoulders of that generation. You will have opportunities beyond anything we’ve ever known.
– Ronald Reagan
The thought of being President frightens me and I do not think I want the job.
– Ronald Reagan
If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth.
– Ronald Reagan
We maintain the peace through our strength; weakness only invites aggression.
– Ronald Reagan
Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.
– Ronald Reagan
We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we will always be free.
– Ronald Reagan
Surround yourself with great people; delegate authority; get out of the way
– Ronald Reagan
The federal government did not create the states; the states created the federal government.
– Ronald Reagan
In this springtime of hope, some lights seem eternal; America’s is.
– Ronald Reagan
Government’s first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.
– Ronald Reagan
– Ronald Reagan quote: Of the many influences that have shaped the United States into a distinctive…
Of the many influences that have shaped the United States into a distinctive nation and people, none may be said to be more fundamental and enduring than the Bible.
– Ronald Reagan
Let us remember with devotion that the flag we love and honor is the flag of freedom that flew in victory at Yorktown, the flag the United States Marines raised on Mount Suribachi, the flag Francis Scott Key saw by the dawn’s early light. Long may it wave.
– Ronald Reagan
I now have absolute proof that smoking even one marijuana cigarette is equal in brain damage to being on Bikini Island during an H-bomb blast
– Ronald Reagan
Inside the Bible’s pages lie the answers to all the problems that mankind has ever known. I hope Americans will read and study the Bible.
– Ronald Reagan
I’ve always believed that this blessed land was set apart in a special way, that some divine plan placed this great continent here between the oceans to be found by people from every corner of the Earth who had a special love for freedom and the courage to uproot themselves, leave homeland and friends, to come to a strange land. And coming here they created something new in all the history of mankind-a land where man is not beholden to government, government is beholden to man.
– Ronald Reagan
To sit back hoping that someday, some way, someone will make things right is to go on feeding the crocodile, hoping he will eat you last – but eat you he will.
– Ronald Reagan
It’s true hard work never killed anybody, but I figure, why take the chance?
– Ronald Reagan
I favor the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and it must be enforced at gunpoint if necessary.
– Ronald Reagan
Today, if you invent a better mousetrap, the government comes along with a better mouse.
– Ronald Reagan
Stick to your dreams and determine that you’re going to make them come true.
– Ronald Reagan
A wife who loses a husband is called a widow. A husband who loses a wife is called a widower. A child who loses his parents is called an orphan. There is no word for a parent who loses a child. That’s how awful the loss is.
– Ronald Reagan
If there’s one thing the American people aren’t lacking, it is courage.
– Ronald Reagan
We must always meet our obligation to those who fall behind without our assistance. But let’s remember, without a race there can be no champion, no records broken, no excellence – in education or any other walk of life.
– Ronald Reagan
There is no love like a mother’s – she who carries the child that God knits in the womb, she who nourishes and guides, she who teaches and inspires, she who gives of her heart and soul and self for the good and the happiness of her children and her family.
– Ronald Reagan
We should measure welfare’s success by how many people leave welfare, not by how many are added.
– Ronald Reagan
Life involves effort and growth. You won’t grow by watching a situation comedy, though you can grow by reading a book. I hope we aren’t becoming a nation of watchers, because what made us great is that we’ve always been a nation of doers.
– Ronald Reagan
And children, if your parents haven’t been teaching you what it means to be an American, let ’em know and nail ’em on it. That would be a very American thing to do.
– Ronald Reagan
There are only two things that the liberals don’t understand: the things that change and the things that don’t.
– Ronald Reagan
May each of you have the heart to conceive, the understanding to direct, and the hand to execute works that will leave the world a little better for your having been here.
– Ronald Reagan
Marijuana is probably the most dangerous drug in America today.
– Ronald Reagan
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.
– Ronald Reagan
Government always finds a need for whatever money it gets.
– Ronald Reagan
The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.
– Ronald Reagan
Let us thank God for life and the blessings He’s put before us. High among them are our families, our freedom, and the opportunities of a new year.
– Ronald Reagan
I’ve often said there’s nothing better for the inside of a man than the outside of a horse.
– Ronald Reagan
I never drink coffee at lunch. I find it keeps me awake for the afternoon.
– Ronald Reagan
A leader, once convinced that a particular course of action is the right one, must….be undaunted when the going gets tough.
– Ronald Reagan
Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged.
– Ronald Reagan
I don’t think any of us should forget that the security of America is our highest responsibility.
– Ronald Reagan
Government is the people’s business and every man, woman and child becomes a shareholder with the first penny of tax paid.
– Ronald Reagan
A socialist is someone who has read Lenin and Marx. An anti-socialist is someone who understands Lenin and Marx.
– Ronald Reagan
The taxpayer – that’s someone who works for the federal government but doesn’t have to take the civil service examination.
– Ronald Reagan
Education is not the means of showing people how to get what they want. Education is an exercise by means of which enough men, it is hoped, will learn to want what is worth having.
– Ronald Reagan
The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives.
– Ronald Reagan
Don’t be afraid to see what you see.
– Ronald Reagan
If we love our country, we should also love our countrymen.
– Ronald Reagan
I’ve never been able to understand why a Republican contributor is a ‘fat cat’ and a Democratic contributor of the same amount of money is a ‘public-spirited philanthropist’.
– Ronald Reagan
We might come closer to balancing the Budget if all of us lived closer to the Commandments and the Golden Rule.
– Ronald Reagan
We the people tell the government what to do, it doesn’t tell us.
– Ronald Reagan
People who think a tax boost will cure inflation are the same ones who believe another drink will cure a hangover.
– Ronald Reagan
The work of volunteer groups throughout our country represents the very heart and soul of America. They have helped make this the most compassionate, generous, and humane society that ever existed on the face of this earth.
– Ronald Reagan
It doesn’t do good to open doors for someone who doesn’t have the price to get in. If he has the price, he may not need the laws. There is no law saying the Negro has to live in Harlem or Watts.
– Ronald Reagan
Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.
– Ronald Reagan
Without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure.
– Ronald Reagan
Before I refuse to take your questions, I have an opening statement.
– Ronald Reagan
When a child loses his parent, they are called an orphan. When a spouse loses her or his partner, they are called a widow or widower. When parents lose their child, their isn’t a word to describe them. This month recognizes the loss so many parents experience across the United States and around the world. It is also meant to inform and provide resources for parents who have lost children due to miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, molar pregnancy, stillbirths, birth defects, SIDS, and other causes.
– Ronald Reagan
We will remain steady. We will pursue every avenue in the search for peace and stability.
– Ronald Reagan
A people free to choose will always choose peace.
– Ronald Reagan
You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth.
– Ronald Reagan
The real question today is not when human life begins, but, what is the value of human life? The abortionist who reassembles the arms and legs of a tiny baby to make sure all its parts have been torn from its mother’s body can hardly doubt whether it is a human being. The real question for him and for all of us is whether that tiny human life has a God-given right to be protected by the law – the same right we have.
– Ronald Reagan
Government Steals from the needy and gives to the greedy
– Ronald Reagan
In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. From time to time we’ve been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? All of us together, in and out of government, must bear the burden.
– Ronald Reagan
There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don’t care who gets the credit.
– Ronald Reagan
I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead.
– Ronald Reagan
Double – no, triple – our troubles and we’d still be better off than any other people on earth.
– Ronald Reagan
The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would steal them away.
– Ronald Reagan
We are a nation that has a government-not the other way around. And that makes us special among the nations of the earth.
– Ronald Reagan
An informed patriotism is what we want.
– Ronald Reagan
We in America have learned bitter lessons from two world wars: It is better to be here [in Europe] ready to protect the peace, than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost. We’ve learned that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent.
– Ronald Reagan
A moment I’ve been dreading. George brought his ne’re-do-well son around this morning and asked me to find the kid a job. Not the political one who lives in Florida. The one who hangs around here all the time looking shiftless. This so-called kid is already almost 40 and has never had a real job. Maybe I’ll call Kinsley over at The New Republic and see if they’ll hire him as a contributing editor or something. That looks like easy work.
– Ronald Reagan
A nation that cannot control its borders is not a nation.
– Ronald Reagan
Millions of individuals making their own decisions in the marketplace will always allocate resources better than any centralized government planning process.
– Ronald Reagan
A broader reading of history shows that appeasement, no matter how it is labeled, never fulfills the hopes of the appeasers.
– Ronald Reagan
We have every right to dream heroic dreams.
– Ronald Reagan
Admittedly, there is a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson in history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face.
– Ronald Reagan
A troubled and afflicted mankind looks to us, pleading for us to keep our rendezvous with destiny; that we will uphold the principles of self-reliance, self-discipline, morality, and, above all, responsible liberty for every individual that we will become that shining city on a hill.
– Ronald Reagan
Life is one grand, sweet song, so start the music.
– Ronald Reagan
Mankind’s journey into space, like every great voyage of discovery, will become part of our unending journey of liberation. In the limitless reaches of space, we will find liberation from tyranny, from scarcity, from ignorance and from war. We will find the means to protect this Earth and to nurture every human life, and to explore the universe. . . .This is our mission, this is our destiny.
– Ronald Reagan
A friend of mine was asked to a costume ball a short time ago. He slapped some egg on his face and went as a liberal economist.
– Ronald Reagan
America is too great for small dreams.
– Ronald Reagan
Our natural, inalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation from government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment.
– Ronald Reagan
Revolution means democracy in today’s world, not the enslavement of peoples to the corrupt and degrading horrors of totalitarianism
– Ronald Reagan
The one thing our Founding Fathers could not foresee – they were farmers, professional men, businessmen giving of their time and effort to an idea that became a country – was a nation governed by professional politicians who had an interest in getting re-elected. They probably envisioned a fellow serving a couple of hitches and then eagerly looking forward to getting back to the farm.
– Ronald Reagan
America has not been a story or a byword. That small community of Pilgrims prospered and, driven by the dreams and, yes, by the ideas of the Founding Fathers, went on to become a beacon to all the oppressed and poor of the world.
– Ronald Reagan
We don’t have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven’t taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much.
– Ronald Reagan
Christmas can be celebrated in the school room with pine trees, tinsel and reindeers, but there must be no mention of the man whose birthday is being celebrated. One wonders how a teacher would answer if a student asked why it was called Christmas.
– Ronald Reagan
If some among you fear taking a stand because you are afraid of reprisals from customers, clients, or even government, recognize that you are just feeding the crocodile hoping he’ll eat you last.
– Ronald Reagan
You can’t tax business. Business doesn’t pay taxes. It collects taxes.
– Ronald Reagan
Freedom is the right to question and change the established way of doing things.
– Ronald Reagan
Governments don’t control things. A government can’t control the economy without controlling people.
– Ronald Reagan
If you don’t know whether a body is alive or dead, you would never bury it. I think this consideration itself should be enough for all of us to insist on protecting the unborn.
– Ronald Reagan
We have so many people who can’t see a fat man standing beside a thin one without coming to the conclusion that the fat man got that way by taking advantage of the thin one!
– Ronald Reagan
One way to make sure crime doesn’t pay would be to let the government run it.
– Ronald Reagan
While I take inspiration from the past, like most Americans, I live for the future.
– Ronald Reagan
We can’t have it both ways. We can’t expect God to protect us in a crisis and just leave Him over there on the shelf in our day-to-day living. I wonder if sometimes He isn’t waiting for us to wake up, He isn’t maybe running out of patience.
– Ronald Reagan
You can’t be for big government, big taxes and big bureaucracy and still be for the little guy.
– Ronald Reagan
We have the duty to protect the life of an unborn child.
– Ronald Reagan
It’s difficult to believe that people are still starving in this country because food isn’t available.
– Ronald Reagan
My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you I just signed legislation which outlaws Russia forever. The bombing begins in five minutes.
– Ronald Reagan
Ours was the first revolution in the history of mankind that truly reversed the course of government, and with three little words: ‘We the people.’ ‘We the people’ tell the government what to do, it doesn’t tell us. ‘We the people’ are the driver, the government is the car. And we decide where it should go, and by what route, and how fast. Almost all the world’s constitutions are documents in which governments tell the people what their privileges are. Our Constitution is a document in which ‘We the people’ tell the government what it is allowed to do. ‘We the people’ are free.
– Ronald Reagan
Someone must stand up to those who say, “Here’s the key, there’s the Treasury, just take as many of those hard-earned tax dollars as you want.”
– Ronald Reagan
Shouldn’t someone tag Mr. Kennedy’s bold new imaginative program with its proper age? Under the tousled boyish haircut is still old Karl Marx-first launched a century ago. There is nothing new in the idea of a government being Big Brother.
– Ronald Reagan
Wherever a beautiful soul has been there is a trail of beautiful memories…
– Ronald Reagan
Status quo, you know, is Latin for ‘the mess we’re in’.
– Ronald Reagan
I can’t help but believe that in the future we will see in the United States and throughout the Western world an increasing trend toward the next logical step, employee ownership. It is a path that befits a free people.
– Ronald Reagan
A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. The only value in our two nations possessing nuclear weapons is to make sure they will never be used. But then would it not be better to do away with them entirely?
– Ronald Reagan
Perhaps there is a simple answer — not an easy answer — but simple: If you and I have the courage to tell our elected officials that we want our national policy based on what we know in our hearts is morally right.
– Ronald Reagan
The most confident person in any transaction ALWAYS introduces themselves first.
– Ronald Reagan
History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.
– Ronald Reagan
When you start talking about government as ‘we’ instead of ‘they,’ you have been in office too long.
– Ronald Reagan
Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, ‘What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power.’ But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector.
– Ronald Reagan
Governments tend not to solve problems, only to rearrange them.
– Ronald Reagan
Thomas Jefferson made a comment about the Presidency and age. He said that one should not worry about one’s exact chronological age in reference to his ability to perform one’s task. And ever since he told me that, I stopped worrying.
– Ronald Reagan
Nothing lasts longer than a temporary government program.
– Ronald Reagan
Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
– Ronald Reagan
You are worried about what man has done and is doing to this magical planet that God gave us. And I share your concern. What is a conservative after all but one who conserves, one who is committed to protecting and holding close the things by which we live…And we want to protect and conserve the land on which we live – our countryside, our rivers and mountains, our plains and meadows and forests. This is our patrimony. This is what we leave to our children. And our great moral responsibility is to leave it to them either as we found it or better than we found it.
– Ronald Reagan
My philosophy of life is that if we make up our mind what we are going to make of our lives, then work hard toward that goal, we never lose – somehow we win out.
– Ronald Reagan
Protecting the rights of even the least individual among us is basically the only excuse the government has for even existing.
– Ronald Reagan
Anytime you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we’re denounced as being against their humanitarian goals. They say we’re always “against” things-we’re never “for” anything. Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.
– Ronald Reagan
The Montreal Protocol is a model of cooperation. It is a product of the recognition and international consensus that ozone depletion is a global problem, both in terms of its causes and its effects. The protocol is the result of an extraordinary process of scientific study, negotiations among representatives of the business and environmental communities, and international diplomacy. It is a monumental achievement.
– Ronald Reagan
The preservation of parks, wilderness, and wildlife has also aided liberty by keeping alive the 19th century sense of adventure and awe with which our forefathers greeted the American West. Many laws protecting environmental quality have promoted liberty by securing property against the destructive trespass of pollution. In our own time, the nearly universal appreciation of these preserved landscapes, restored waters, and cleaner air through outdoor recreation is a modern expression of our freedom and leisure to enjoy the wonderful life that generations past have built for us.
– Ronald Reagan
If we’ve learned any lessons during the past few decades, perhaps the most important is that preservation of our environment is not a partisan challenge; it’s common sense. Our physical health, our social happiness, and our economic well-being will be sustained only by all of us working in partnership as thoughtful, effective stewards of our natural resources.
– Ronald Reagan
All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored under a desk.
– Ronald Reagan
We can not play innocents abroad in a world that is not innocent.
– Ronald Reagan
The best social program is a productive job for anyone who’s willing to work.
– Ronald Reagan
No matter what time it is, wake me, even if it’s in the middle of a Cabinet meeting.
– Ronald Reagan
Abraham Lincoln recognized that we could not survive as a free land when some men could decide that others were not fit to be free and should therefore be slaves. Likewise, we cannot survive as a free nation when some men decide that others are not fit to live and should be abandoned to abortion or infanticide.
– Ronald Reagan
I didn’t leave the Democratic party; the Democratic party left me.
– Ronald Reagan