Ronald Reagan Quotes (308 Quotes)

People do not make wars; governments do.

When you get there, the world is gone.

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!

I would have voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964

The Soviet leaders reserve unto themselves the right to commit any crime, to lie, to cheat and that the only morality they recognize is what will further their cause.

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

Our friends in the other party will never forgive us for our success, and are doing everything in their power to rewrite history. Listening to the liberals, you'd think that the 1980s were the worst period since the Great Depression, filled with suffering and despair. I don't know about you, but I'm getting awfully tired of the whining voices from the White House these days. They're claiming there was a decade of greed and neglect, but you and I know better than that. We were there.

We relax at the ranch, which if not heaven itself, probably has the same zip code.

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

an entirely appropriate means of calling attention to the abortion tragedy.

So the ... the helm is right here. And that means right in this chair for now, constitutionally, until the vice president gets here.

Our federal tax system is, in short, utterly impossible, utterly unjust and completely counterproductive . . . It reeks with injustice, and is fundamentally un-American,

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

Government is the people's business and every man, woman and child becomes a shareholder with the first penny of tax paid.

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

I know I'm not in government anymore. In fact I'm out of work.

In closing, let me thank you, the American people, for giving me the great honor of allowing me to serve as your president. When the Lord calls me home, whenever that day may be, I will leave with the greatest love for this country of ours and eternal optimism for its future. I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life. I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead.

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.

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

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

When you see all of the smoke billowing up from the Democrats, ladies and gentlemen, I'd follow the advice of their nominee Don't Inhale .

You can never underestimate the ability of the Democrats to wet their finger and hold it to the wind.

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. Only when the human spirit is allowed to invent and create, only when individuals are given a personal stake in deciding economic policies and benefiting from their success -- only then can societies remain economically alive, dynamic, progressive, and free. Trust the people. This is the one irrefutable lesson of the entire postwar period contradicting the notion that rigid government controls are essential to economic development.

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.

The movie was the life story of baseball pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander, who begin his professional career with a Galesburg minor league team in the early teens,

We begin bombing (the Russians) in five minutes.

What makes him think a middle aged actor Clint Eastwood, who's played with a chimp, could have a future in politics

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

The years ahead will be great ones for our country, for the cause of freedom and the spread of civilization. The West will not contain Communism it will transcend Communism. We will not bother to denounce it, we'll dismiss it as a sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages are even now being written.

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.

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

We don't have an option of living with inflation and its attendant tragedy. We have an alternative, and that is the program for economic recovery. True, it'll take time for the favorable effects of our program to be felt. So, we must begin now. The people are watching and waiting. They don't demand miracles. They do expect us to act. Let us act together.

And if you answer all of those questions yes, why then, I think your choice is very obvious as to whom you will vote for. If you don't agree, if you don't think this course that we've been on for the last four years is what you would like to see us follow for the next four, then I could suggest another choice that you have.

A leader, once convinced a particular course of action is the right one, must have the determination to stick with it and be undaunted when the going gets tough.

I was raised to believe that God has a plan for everyone and that seemingly random twists of fate are all a part of His plan.

Since I came to the White House, I got two hearing aids, a colon operation, skin cancer, a prostate operation, and I was shot. The damn thing is I've never felt better in my life.

In spite of the wildly speculative and false stories of arms for hostages and alleged ransom payments, we did not -- repeat did not -- trade weapons or anything else for hostages nor will we.

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. . . . East and West do not distrust each other because we are armed we are armed because we distrust each other. And our differences are not about weapons but about liberty. . . . The most fundamental distinction of all between East and West (sic.) is that the totalitarian world produces backwardness because it does such violence to the spirit, thwarting the human impulse to create, to enjoy, to worship. The totalitarian world finds even symbols of love and of worship an affront.

The size of the federal budget is not an appropriate barometer of social conscience or charitable concern.

He had retired from the Senate, one of the best-liked and respected men in the country, and was practicing law and preparing to run for the Republican nomination for president in 1988. A call came asking him to come to the White House. He was walking toward the Oval Office when he saw the president, Ronald Reagan , standing alone in the darkened hallway. Howard, ... I need you ...

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.

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.

the trade union which dealt the death blow to communism.

Someplace along the line the audience discovered you. In my case it was playing the Gipper.

All great change in America begins at the dinner table.

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.

In the present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem government is the problem

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

I believe with all my heart that standing up for America means standing up for the God who has so blessed our land. We need God's help to guide our nation through stormy seas. But we can't expect Him to protect America in a crisis if we just leave Him over on the shelf in our day-to-day living.

The march of freedom and democracy . . . 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.