Ronald Reagan Quotes

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.

Information is the oxygen of the modern age. It seeps through the walls topped by barbed wire, it wafts across the electrified borders ... The Goliath of totalitarianism will be brought down by the David of the microchip.

I couldn t help but say to Mr. Gorbachev just think how easy his task and mine might be in these meetings that we held if suddenly there was a threat to this world from another planet. We d find out once and for all that we really are all human beings here on this earth together

I'm not a politician by profession. I am a citizen who decided I had to be personally involved.

There are simple answers to the nation's problems, but not easy ones.

The great dynamic success of capitalism had given us a powerful weapon in our battle against Communism-money.

I discovered that night (in his college's student politics) that an audience has a feel to it, and, in the parlance of the theater, that audience and I were together.

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

For decades, we have piled deficit upon deficit, mortgaging our future and our children's future for the temporary convenience of the present. To continue this long trend is to guarantee tremendous social, cultural, political, and economic upheavals. You and I, as individuals, can, by borrowing, live beyond our means, but for only a limited period of time. Why, then, should we think that collectively, as a nation, we are not bound by that same limitation?

People were tired of wasteful government programs and welfare chiselers; and they were angry about the constant spiral of taxes and government regulations, arrogant bureaucrats, and public officials who thought all of mankind's problems could be solved by throwing the taxpayers' dollars at them.

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.

If it's to be a bloodbath, let it be now. Appeasement is not the answer.

Indeed, it is an indisputable fact that all the complex and horrendous questions confronting us at home and worldwide have their answer in that single book [the Bible].

I warned that there should be no place on Earth where terrorists can rest and train and practice their deadly skills. I meant it. I said that we would act with others, if possible, and alone if necessary to ensure that terrorists have no sanctuary anywhere. Tonight, we have.

A strong American economy is essential to the well-being and security of our friends and allies.

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.

Don't give up on your ideals. Don't compromise. Don't turn to expediency. And for heaven's sake ... don't get cynical.

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.

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.

Aren't lazy or unwilling to work: they just don't know how to free themselves from the welfare security blanket.

Americans are not going to tolerate intimidation, terror and outright acts of war against this nation and its people. And we are especially not going to tolerate these attacks from outlaw states run by the strangest collection of misfits, Looney Tunes and squalid criminals since the advent of the Third Reich ... There can be no place on earth where it is safe for these monsters to rest,or train or practice their cruel and deadly. We must act together - or unilateraly, if necessary - to ensue that these terrorists have no sanctuary, anywhere.

Why should we subsidize intellectual curiosity?

Let us renew our faith that as free men and women we still have the power to better our lives.

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.

You and I are told increasingly we have to choose between left or right. Well, I'd like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There's only an up or down.

We were poor when I was young but the difference was that the government didn't come around telling you you were poor.

If there's one observation that rings true in today's changing world, it is that freedom and peace go hand in hand.

Facts are stupid things - stubborn things, I should say.

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

Americans are hungering to feel proud and patriotic again.

I know that it is often difficult to stand up for one's beliefs when they are being harshly challenged. But as one who has seen many challenges over a long lifetime, I can assure you that personal faith and conviction are strengthened, not weakened, in adversity.

Too often character assassination has replaced debate in principle here in Washington. Destroy someone's reputation, and you don't have to talk about what he stands for.

But Nancy is right - Presidents don't have vacations - they just have a change of scenery";

Looking back at the recent history of the world, I find it amazing how far civilization has retrogressed so quickly. As recently as World War I - granted the rules were violated at times - we had a set of rules of warfare in which armies didn't make war against civilians: Soldiers fought soldiers. Then came World War II and Hitler's philosophy of total war, which meant the bombing not only of soldiers but of factories that produced their rifles, and, if surrounding communities were also hit, that was to be accepted; then, as the war progressed, it became common for the combatants simply to attack civilians as part of military strategy. By the time the 1980s rolled around, we were placing our entire faith in a weapon whose fundamental target was the civilian population.

I am told that tens of thousands of prayer meetings are being held on this day; for that I am deeply grateful. We are a nation under God, and I believe God intended for us to be free. It would be fitting and good, I think, if on each inaugural day in future years it should be declared a day of prayer.

One hundred nations in the UN have not agreed with us on just about everything that's come before them, where we're involved, and it didn't upset my breakfast at all.

Detente - isn't that what a farmer has with his turkey - until Thanksgiving?

I would have voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

We can have peace and brotherly love by accepting our responsibility to preserve freedom.

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.

We can't build a safer world with honorable intentions and good will alone. Achieving the fundamental goals our nation seeks in world affairs - peace, human rights, economics progress national independence and international stability - means supporting our friends and defending our interests.

Freedom is always just one generation away from extinction. We don't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. We have to fight for it and protect it and then hand it to them, so that they shall do the same, or we're going to find ourselves spending our sunset years telling our children and our children's children, about a time in America, back in the day, when men and women were free.

We didn't discover our values in a poll taken a week before the convention.

Her many achievements will be appreciated more as time goes on.

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.

America's foreign policy supports freedom, democracy, and human dignity for all mankind, and we make no apologies for it. The opportunity society that we want for ourselves we also want for others, not because we're imposing our system on others but because those opportunities belong to all people as God-given birthrights and because by promoting democracy and economic opportunity we make peace more secure.

Our whole system of government is based on "We the people," but if we the people don't pay attention to what's going on, we have no right to bellyache or squawk when things go wrong.

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.

God ... should never have been expelled from America's schools. As we struggle to teach our children ... we dare not forget that our civilization was built by men and women who placed their faith in a loving God. If Congress can begin each day with a moment of prayer ... so then can our sons and daughters.

Together, we'll build a far better future for America
a future of growth, opportunity, and security, anchored by the values of a people who are confident, compassionate, and whose heart is good.

Don't let anyone tell you that America's best days are behind her - that the American spirit has been vanquished. We've seen it triumph too often in our lives to stop believing in it now.

Mr. President: We, women political prisoners of the Soviet Union, congratulate you on your reelection to the spot of President of the USA. We look with hope to your country which is on the road of FREEDOM and respect for HUMAN RIGHTS. We wish you success on this road.

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

It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so.

Revolution means democracy in today's world, not the enslavement of peoples to the corrupt and degrading horrors of totalitarianism

I hope that when you're my age, you'll be able to say as I have been able to say: We lived in freedom, we lived lives that were a statement, not an apology.

In 1962, President John F. Kennedy said, "Our true choice is not between tax reduction on the one hand and avoidance of large federal deficits on the other; it is increasingly clear that no matter what party is in power, as long as our national security needs keep rising, an economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenues to balance the budget - just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits. In short, the paradoxical truth is that the tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise revenues in the long run is to cut rates now.

One thing was unusual and very humbling; the streets were lined with people as if for a parade all the way to the Waldorf. They cheered & clapped and I wore my arms out waving back to them. I keep thinking this can't continue and yet their warmth & affection seems so genuine I get a lump in my throat. I pray constantly that I won't let them down.

There was a time when "sound as a dollar" was a description, not a joke.

Spending on the military doesn't increase the deficit.

If adults want to take such chances (with marijuana) that is their business

I'm just a citizen temporarily in public service.

It's been written that the most sublime figure in American history was George Washington on his knees in the snow at Valley Forge. He personified a people who knew that it was not enough to depend on their own courage and goodness, that they must also seek help from God - their Father and preserver. Where did we begin to lose sight of that noble beginning, of our conviction that standards of right and wrong do exist and must be lived up to? Do we really think that we can have it both ways, that God will protect us in a time of crisis even as we turn away from him in our day-to-day life?

Form and Substance are opposite ends of the same coin.

There can be no security anywhere in the free world if there is no fiscal and economic stability within the United States.

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.

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.

The people's instincts are still right. You see them come to the rescue of someone-a child who falls down a well-hundreds of people rush to help, and labor and equipment are volunteered without any thought of who's going to pay for it. This is a basic feeling in Americans. They don't stand back in such a circumstance and ask what the government's going to do about it.

The more the plans fail, the more the planners plan.

I don't want to do a TV series. It's no fun working from dawn to sunset every day. An occasional movie would be fine, and then I'll see what might develop on the political front.

Our spirit is back, but we haven't reinstitutional ized it. We've got to do a better job of getting across that America is freedom
freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise. And freedom is special and rare. It's fragile; it needs protection.

The gun has been called the great equalizer, meaning that a small person with a gun is equal to a large person, but it is a great equalizer in another way, too. It insures that the people are the equal of their government whenever that government forgets that it is servant and not master of the governed. When the British forgot that they got a revolution. And, as a result, we Americans got a Constitution; a Constitution that, as those who wrote it were determined, would keep men free. If we give up part of that Constitution we give up part of our freedom and increase the chance that we will lose it all. … I am not ready to take that risk. I believe that the right of the citizen to keep and bear arms must not be infringed if liberty in America is to survive.

Could there be anything resembling a free enterprise economy, if wealth and property were concentrated in the hands of a few, while the great majority owned little more than the shirts on their backs?

I am an environmentalist ... I am for clean air.

The ongoing migration of persons to the United States in violation of our laws is a serious national problem detrimental to the interests of the United States.

America's view of apartheid is simple and straightforward: We believe it is wrong. We condemn it. And we are united in hoping for the day when apartheid will be no more.

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.

Among the things he passed on to me were the belief that all men and women, regardless of their color or religion, are created equal and that individuals determine their own destiny; that is, it's largely their own ambition and hard work that determine their fate in life.

The victims of crime have been transformed into a group oppressively burdened by a system designed to protect them.

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.

The true lesson of the Vietnam War is: certainty of purpose and ruthlessness of execution win wars.

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

Honey, I forgot to duck

The challenge of statesmanship is to have the vision to dream of a better, safer world and the courage, persistence, and patience to turn that dream into reality.

When Carter finally agreed to a debate, the date was set for October 28, one week before the election, and we were delighted. The debate went well for me and may have turned on only four little words. They popped out of my mouth after Carter claimed that I had once opposed Medicare benefits for Social Security recipients. It wasn't true and I said so: "There you go again . . .

On the fundamental dignity of the human person, there can be no relenting!

I notice that all of the people who support abortion are already born.

After watching the State of the Union address the other night [1994], I'm reminded of the old adage that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Only in this case, it's not flattery, but grand larceny: the intellectual theft of ideas that you and I recognize as our own. Speech delivery counts for little on the world stage unless you have convictions, and, yes, the vision to see beyond the front row seats.

I thought the function of the government was to promote the general welfare, not to provide it.

I think there are some things ... that may even be distorted in the practice, such as some affirmative action programs becoming quota systems. And I'm old enough to remember when quotas existed in the United States for the purpose of discrimination, and I don't want to see that happen again.

Isn't it strange that ... people build walls to keep an enemy out, and there's only one part of the world and one philosophy where they have to build walls to keep their people in

I don't know what I expected, but my first morning in the Oval Office had a surprising ring of familiarity to it. It reminded me a lot of my job as governor.

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

We're entering our third century now, but it's wrong to judge our nation by its years. The calendar can't measure America because we were meant to be an endless experiment in freedom, with no limits to our reaches, no boundaries to what we can do, no end point to our hopes.

There is a mandate to impose a voluntary return to traditional values.

Love your country, not for her power or wealth, but for her selflessness and her idealism.

A socialist is someone who has read Lenin and Marx. An anti-socialist is someone who understands Lenin and Marx.

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.

You on the cutting edge of technology have already made yesterday's impossibilities the commonplace realities of today.

Whatever else history may say about me when I'm gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears; to your confidence rather than your doubts. My dream is that you will travel the road ahead with liberty's lamp guiding your steps and opportunity's arm steadying your way.