Ronald Reagan quotes

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.

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• bloodstream

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

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• government

Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty.

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• concentrated

I know in my heart that man is good, that what is right will always eventually triumph, and there is purpose and worth to each and every life.

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• inspirational

Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.

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• politics

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

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• down

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

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• america

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

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• past

Let us ask ourselves; What kind of people do we think we are?

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• humanity

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

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• far

The greatest security for Israel is to create new Egypts.

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• create

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

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• goal

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

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• added

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

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• character

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, or 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.

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• freedom

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

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• work

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

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• information

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.

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• age

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

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• politics

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

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• answers

Poland is not East or West. Poland is at the center of European civilization. It has contributed mightily to that civilization. It is doing so today by being magnificently unreconciled to oppression.

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• today

Don't be afraid to see what you see.

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• afraid

If you've seen one redwood, you've seen them all.

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• experience

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

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• work

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

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• prepared

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

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• latinos

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

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• almost

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

• tree

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.

• air

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.

• communist

We don't hide our space program. We don't keep secrets and cover things up. We do it all up front and in public. That's the way freedom is, and we wouldn't change it for a minute.

• change

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!

• justice

Today on the NATO line, our military forces face east to prevent a possible invasion. On the other side of the line, the Soviet forces also face east to prevent their people from leaving.

• today

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

• grand

I noticed words crudely spray-painted upon the wall, perhaps by a young Berliner: 'This wall will fall. Beliefs become reality.' Yes, across Europe, this wall will fall. For it cannot withstand faith; it cannot withstand truth. The wall cannot withstand freedom.

• freedom

The British people know that, given strong leadership, time, and a little bit of hope, the forces of good ultimately rally and triumph over evil.

• leadership

One picture is worth 1,000 denials.

• funny

You are Mrs. Reagan because Mr. Reagan loves you with all his heart.

• heart

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

• security

So in your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals, I urge you to beware the temptation of pride -- the temptation blithely to declare yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong, good and evil.

• war

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

• being

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.

• politics

People do not make wars; governments do.

• governments

I have left orders to be awakened at any time during national emergency, even if I'm in a cabinet meeting.

• growing

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

• chance

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

• leadership

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.

• poverty

I will stand on, and continue to use, the figures I have used, because I believe they are correct. Now, I'm not going to deny that you don't now and then slip up on something; no one bats a thousand.

• statistics

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

• afternoon

Man is not free unless government is limited.

• freedom

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

• economics

Facts are stubborn things.

• facts

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

• commandments

All great change in America begins at the dinner table.

• change

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

• freedom

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.

• conservation

Optimism comes less easily today, not because democracy is less vigorous, but because democracy's enemies have refined their instruments of repression.

• today

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.

• anything

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!

• bureaucracy

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

• government

A people free to choose will always choose peace.

• peace

Regimes planted by bayonets do not take root.

• planted

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

• actors

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

• friends

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

• democracy

Let us be shy no longer. Let us go to our strength. Let us offer hope. Let us tell the world that a new age is not only possible but probable.

• strength

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.

• political

I recently learned something quite interesting about video games. Many young people have developed incredible hand, eye, and brain coordination in playing these games. The air force believes these kids will be our outstanding pilots should they fly our jets.

• gambling

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

• people

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

• begins

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

• duty

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.

• cause

How can a president not be an actor?

• actor

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

• presidency

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

• world

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

• intelligence

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

• among

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.

• come

The totalitarian world produces backwardness because it does such violence to the spirit, thwarting the human impulse to create, to enjoy, to worship.

• enjoy

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

• politics

History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap. To keep the peace, we and our allies must be strong enough to convince any potential aggressor that war could bring no benefit, only disaster.

• war

For the sake of peace and justice, let us move toward a world in which all people are at last free to determine their own destiny.

• peace

Mad or glad, Mr. Reagan is head over heels in love with Mrs. Reagan and can't even imagine a world without her - He loves her.

• love

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

• god

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.

• authority

The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave.

• future

You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing is worth dying for, when did this begin...? ...Should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots of Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard 'round the world?

• revolution

We should declare war on North Vietnam. We could pave the whole country and put parking strips on it, and still be home by Christmas.

• christmas

We are never defeated unless we give up on God.

• god

If I'd gotten the job I wanted at Montgomery Ward, I suppose I would never have left Illinois.I've often wondered at how lives are shaped by what seem like small and inconsequential events, how an apparently random turn in the road can lead you a long way from where you intended to go--and a long way from wherever you expected to go. For me, the first of these turns occurred in the summer of 1932, in the abyss of the Depression.

• life

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.

• security

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.

• will

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

• drugs

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.

• christmas

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

• desk

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.

• churchill

Without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure.

• god

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

• life

We are participating in the orderly transfer of administrative authority by the direction of the people. And this is the simple magic which makes a commonplace routine a near miracle to many of the world

• freedom

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

• heroes

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.

• responsibility

Let us ask ourselves, 'What kind of people do we think we are?' And let us answer, 'Free people, worthy of freedom and determined not only to remain so but to help others gain their freedom as well.'

• freedom

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

• answers

In my eighty years, I prefer to call that the forty-first anniversary of my thirty ninth birthday, I've seen what men can do for each other and do to each other, I've seen war and peace, feast and famine, depression and prosperity, sickness and health. I've seen the depth of suffering and the peaks of triumph and I know in my heart that man is good, that what is right will always eventually triumph and that there is purpose and worth to each and every life.

• humanity

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.

• attention

Government always finds a need for whatever money it gets.

• finds

The objective I propose is quite simple to state: to foster the infrastructure of democracy - the system of a free press, unions, political parties, universities - which allows a people to choose their own way to develop their own culture, to reconcile their own differences through peaceful means.

• simple

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

• mind

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'.

• able

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

• advantage

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.

• eventually

We are for aiding our allies by sharing some of our material blessings with those nations which share in our fundamental beliefs, but we are against doling out money government to government, creating bureaucracy, if not socialism, all over the world. We set out to help 19 countries. We are helping 107 We spent $146 billion. With that money, we bought a 2-million-dollar yacht for Haile Selassie. We bought dress suits for Greek undertakers, extra wives for Kenya government officials. We bought a thousand TV sets for a place where they have no electricity.

• help

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

• big

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.

• doors