Ronald Reagan Quotes

1. 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.

2. If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under.

3. Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged.

4. Man is not free unless government is limited.

5. 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.

6. Some people wonder all their lives if they've made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem.

7. Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty.

8. Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.

9. 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!

10. Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.

11. All great change in America begins at the dinner table.

12. There are no easy answers' but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right.

13. Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.

14. It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.

15. Entrepreneurs and their small enterprises are responsible for almost all the economic growth in the United States.

16. Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

17. 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.

18. Republicans believe every day is the Fourth of July, but the democrats believe every day is April 15.

19. 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.

20. Trust, but verify.

21. We should measure welfare's success by how many people leave welfare, not by how many are added.

22. 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".

23. I have wondered at times what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the US Congress.

24. Approximately 80% of our air pollution stems from hydrocarbons released by vegetation, so let's not go overboard in setting and enforcing tough emission standards from man-made sources.

25. We can't help everyone, but everyone can help someone.

26. The problem is not that people are taxed too little, the problem is that government spends too much.

27. 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.

28. The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.

29. A people free to choose will always choose peace.

30. Democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man.

31. Recession is when a neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours.

32. Within the covers of the Bible are the answers for all the problems men face.

33. Government always finds a need for whatever money it gets.

34. 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.

35. But there are advantages to being elected President. The day after I was elected, I had my high school grades classified Top Secret.

36. 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.

37. 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.

38. Before I refuse to take your questions, I have an opening statement.

39. If we love our country, we should also love our countrymen.

40. We are never defeated unless we give up on God.

41. Without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure.

42. Facts are stubborn things. 

43. 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.

44. When you can't make them see the light, make them feel the heat.

45. We're in greater danger today than we were the day after Pearl Harbor. Our military is absolutely incapable of defending this country.

46. A tree's a tree. How many more do you need to look at?

47. The taxpayer - that's someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take the civil service examination.

48. There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect.

49. Life is one grand, sweet song, so start the music.

50. Don't be afraid to see what you see.

51. We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we will always be free.

52. I am not worried about the deficit. It is big enough to take care of itself.

53. 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.

54. Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don't interfere as long as the policy you've decided upon is being carried out.

55. Thomas Jefferson once said: "We should never judge a president by his age, only by his works." And ever since he told me that, I stopped worrying.

56. All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored under a desk.

57. 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.

58. Welfare's purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence.

59. Latinos are Republican. They just don't know it yet.

60. It's true hard work never killed anybody, but I figure, why take the chance?

61. Protecting the rights of even the least individual among us is basically the only excuse the government has for even existing.

62. It's silly talking about how many years we will have to spend in the jungles of Vietnam when we could pave the whole country and put parking stripes on it and still be home by Christmas.

63. 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.

64. My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you I just signed legislation which outlaws Russia forever. The bombing begins in five minutes.

65. One picture is worth 1,000 denials.

66. The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would steal them away.

67. Governments tend not to solve problems, only to rearrange them.

68. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, I did not take the oath I have just taken with the intention of presiding over the dissolution of the world's strongest economy.

69. No mother would ever willingly sacrifice her sons for territorial gain, for economic advantage, for ideology.

70. I've often said there's nothing better for the inside of a man than the outside of a horse.

71. Today we did what we had to do. They counted on America to be passive. They counted wrong.

72. One way to make sure crime doesn't pay would be to let the government run it.

73. We might come closer to balancing the Budget if all of us lived closer to the Commandments and the Golden Rule.

74. I favor the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and it must be enforced at gunpoint if necessary.

75. Politics is just like show business. You have a hell of an opening, coast for a while, and then have a hell of a close.

76. Heroes may not be braver than anyone else. They're just braver five minutes longer.

77. Unemployment insurance is a pre-paid vacation for freeloaders.

78. Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong.

79. Peace is not absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means.

80. The greatest security for Israel is to create new Egypts.

81. We have the duty to protect the life of an unborn child.

82. While I take inspiration from the past, like most Americans, I live for the future.

83. The trouble with our Liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so.

84. How can a president not be an actor?

85. Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book.

86. They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong.

87. It's difficult to believe that people are still starving in this country because food isn't available.

88. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

89. Status quo, you know, is Latin for "the mess we're in".

90. Going to college offered me the chance to play football for four more years.

91. Inflation is as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber and as deadly as a hit man.

92. I never drink coffee at lunch. I find it keeps me awake for the afternoon.

93. History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.

94. 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.

95. People do not make wars; governments do.

96. There are no great limits to growth because there are no limits of human intelligence, imagination, and wonder.

97. Today, if you invent a better mousetrap, the government comes along with a better mouse.

98. We can not play innocents abroad in a world that is not innocent.

99. 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.

100. What we have found in this country, and maybe we're more aware of it now, is one problem that we've had, even in the best of times, and that is the people who are sleeping on the grates, the homeless, you might say, by choice.

101. You can tell a lot about a fellow's character by his way of eating jellybeans.

102. Information is the oxygen of the modern age. It seeps through the walls topped by barbed wire, it wafts across the electrified borders.

103. No matter what time it is, wake me, even if it's in the middle of a Cabinet meeting.

104. You know, if I listened to Michael Dukakis long enough, I would be convinced we're in an economic downturn and people are homeless and going without food and medical attention and that we've got to do something about the unemployed.

105. The thought of being President frightens me and I do not think I want the job.

106. Let us not forget who we are. Drug abuse is a repudiation of everything America is.

107. Violence has been Nicaragua's most important export to the world.

108. We in government should learn to look at our country with the eyes of the entrepreneur, seeing possibilities where others see only problems.

109. 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.

110. The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or the next. It was the deep knowledge - and pray God we have not lost it - that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest.

111. Abortion is advocated only by persons who have themselves been born.

112. Live simply, love generously, care deeply, speak kindly, leave the rest to God.

113. Sometimes when I'm faced with an atheist, I am tempted to invite him to the greatest gourmet dinner that one could ever serve, and when we have finished eating that magnificent dinner, to ask him if he believes there's a cook.

114. America is too great for small dreams.

115. Someday, the realm of liberty and justice will encompass the planet. Freedom is not just the birthright of the few, it is the God-given right of all His children, in every country. It won't come by conquest. It will come, because freedom is right and freedom works. It will come, because cooperation and good will among free people will carry the day.

116. 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.

117. 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.

What do you think of Ronald Reagan's quotes?

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