Reagan Quotes

“Are you willing to spend time studying the issues, making yourself aware, and then conveying that information to family and friends? Will you resist the temptation to get a government handout for your community? Realize that the doctor's fight against socialized medicine is your fight. We can't socialize the doctors without socializing the patients. Recognize that government invasion of public power is eventually an assault upon your own business. 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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“The Founding Fathers knew a government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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. . . . But we cannot have such reform while our tax policy is engineered by people who view the tax as a means of achieving changes in our social structure.”

“Most tax revisions didn't improve the system, they made it more like Washington itself complicated, unfair, cluttered with gobbledygook and loopholes designed for those with the power and influence to hire high-priced legal and tax advisers.”

“If history teaches us anything, it teaches that simple-minded appeasement or wishful thinking about our adversaries is folly.”

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

“If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth.”

“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'.”

"They tell us we must learn to live with less, and teach our children that their lives will be less full and prosperous than ours have been; that the America of the coming years will be a place where — because of our past excesses — it will be impossible to dream and make those dreams come true. I don't believe that. And, I don't believe you do either. That is why I am seeking the presidency. I cannot and will not stand by and see this great country destroy itself. Our leaders attempt to blame their failures on circumstances beyond their control, on false estimates by unknown, unidentifiable experts who rewrite modern history in an attempt to convince us our high standard of living, the result of thrift and hard work, is somehow selfish extravagance which we must renounce as we join in sharing scarcity. I don't agree that our nation must resign itself to inevitable decline, yielding its proud position to other hands. I am totally unwilling to see this country fail in its obligation to itself and to the other free peoples of the world."

“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”

“Without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure.”

“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.”

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

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

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

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

"Approximately 80 percent 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."

"Recession is when your neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his."

"I've noticed that everyone who is for abortion has already been born."

"Politics is just like show business. You have a hell of an opening, you coast for awhile, and you have a hell of a closing."

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

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

I know it's hard when you're up to your armpits in alligators to remember you came here to drain the swamp.”

“There are no such things as limits to growth, because there are no limits to the human capacity for intelligence, imagination, and wonder”

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

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

“Government always finds a need for whatever money it gets.”

“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.”

“We are never defeated unless we give up on God.”

“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.”

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

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

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

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

“Man is not free unless government is limited.”

“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction”

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

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

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

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

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

“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.”

“Governments tend not to solve problems, only to rearrange them.”

“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.”

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

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

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

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

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

“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!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

“Trust, but verify.”

“Unemployment insurance is a pre-paid vacation for freeloaders.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“The Democrats say that the United States has had its days in the sun, that our nation has passed its zenith.… My fellow citizens, I utterly reject that view."

"It is not my intention to do away with government. It is rather to make it work -- work with us, not over us; stand by our side, not ride on our back. Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity, not stifle it. This Administration's objective will be a healthy, vigorous, growing economy. "

"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."

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

“There are some who've forgotten why we have a military. It's not to promote war; it's to be prepared for peace.”

“It would seem that not only is religion lacking in the schools -- so is common sense. I wonder what a teacher is supposed to say if a kid asks about those four words on a dime -- 'In God We Trust.' Or maybe that's why they aren't being taught how to read these days.”

“Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

“An informed patriotism is what we want.”

“Republicans believe the best way to assure prosperity is to generate more jobs. The Democrats believe in more welfare.”

“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. This belief has been the underlying basis for everything I've tried to do these past eight years.”

“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.'”

“We developed at the local school district level probably the best public school system in the world. Or it was until the Federal government added Federal interference to Federal financial aid and eroded educational quality in the process.”

“Nations crumble from within when the citizenry asks of government those things which the citizenry might better provide for itself.”

“As government expands liberty contracts.”

“Our federal tax system is, in short, utterly impossible, utterly unjust and completely counterproductive, it reeks with injustice and is fundamentally un-American... it has earned a rebellion and it's time we rebelled.”

“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.”

“I think the best possible social program is a job.”

“Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.... 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 government 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. The solutions we seek must be equitable, with no one group singled out to pay a higher price.”

“Are you entitled to the fruits of your labor or does government have some presumptive right to spend and spend and spend?”

“When you start talking about government as 'we' instead of 'they,' you have been in office too long.”

“I hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There’s a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: as government expands, liberty contracts.”

“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.”

“Our coins bear the words 'In God We Trust'. We take the oath of office asking His help in keeping that oath. And we proclaim that we are a nation under God when we pledge allegiance to the flag. But we can't mention His name in a public school or even sing religious hymns that are nondenominational. 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.”

“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.”

“Have we the courage and the will to face up to the immorality and discrimination of the progressive tax, and demand a return to traditional proportionate taxation? ... Today in our country the tax collector's share is 37 cents of every dollar earned. Freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp.”

“Freedom is the right to question and change the established way of doing things. It is the continuous revolution of the marketplace. It is the understanding that allows us to recognize shortcomings and seek solutions.”

“Tyranny, like fog in the well known poem, often creeps in silently 'on little cat feet.'”

“It is not my intention to do away with government. It is, rather, to make it work -- work with us, not over us; to stand by our side, not ride on our back. Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity, not stifle it. It is no coincidence that our present troubles parallel and are proportionate to the intervention and intrusion in our lives that result from unnecessary and excessive growth of government. ... We shall reflect the compassion that is so much a part of your makeup. How can we love our country and not love our countrymen, and loving them, not reach out a hand when they fall, heal them when they are sick, and provide opportunities to make them self-sufficient so they will be equal in fact and not just in theory? ... 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 Inauguration Day in future years it should be declared a day of prayer.”

“America is too great for small dreams.”

“You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.”

“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 to 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.”

“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.”

“The ultimate determinate in the struggle now going on for the world will not be bombs and rockets but a test of wills and ideas - a trial of spiritual resolve; the values we hold, the beliefs we cherish and the ideas to which we are dedicated.”

“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 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.”

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

"There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don't care who gets the credit."

"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."

"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."

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

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

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

"A nation that cannot control its borders is not a nation."

"A hippie is someone who looks like Tarzan, walks like Jane and smells like Cheetah."

"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."

"The federal government did not create the states; the states created the federal government."

“No people in all history paid a higher price for freedom. And no people have done so much to advance the dignity of man. We are called materialistic. May be so…but our materialism has made our children the biggest, tallest, most handsome, and intelligent generations of Americans yet. They will live longer with fewer illnesses, learn more, see more of the world, and have more success in realizing their personal dreams and ambitions than any other people in any other period of our history - because of our materialism…I think on our side of civilization and on the other side is the law of the jungle…We all have to recognize that this country has been handed the responsibility, greater than any nation, to preserve some 6000 years of civilization against the barbarians."

"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."

"Government does not solve problems. It subsidizes them."

"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. "

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

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

"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."

"If history teaches anything, it teaches that self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly."

"If you think you can - you can!"

"The future doesn't belong to the faint of heart. It belongs to the brave."

"I do not want to go back to the past; I want to go back to the past way of facing the future."

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

"They don't subscribe to our sense of morality; they don't believe in an afterlife; they don't believe in a God or religion. And the only morality they recognize, therefore, is what will advance the cause or socialism."

“It's time we asked ourselves if we still know the freedoms intended for us by the Founding Fathers. James Madison said, "We base all our experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government." This idea that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power, is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election: 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 ourselves.”

“Yet any time you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we're denounced as being opposed to their humanitarian goals. It seems impossible to legitimately debate their solutions with the assumption that all of us share the desire to help the less fortunate. They tell us we're always "against," never "for" anything.”

“And 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.”

“You can't be for big government, big taxes, and big bureaucracy and still be for the little guy.”

“Coercion, after all, merely captures man. Freedom captivates him.”

“Freedom is one of the deepest and noblest aspirations of the human spirit.”

“If you’re afraid of the future, then get out of the way, stand aside. The people of this country are ready to move again.”

“Money can't buy happiness, but it will certainly get you a better class of memories.”

“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, for home protection.”

“I have only one thing to say to the tax increasers. Go ahead-make my day.”

“I was alarmed at my doctor's report He said I was sound as a dollar.”

“I will veto again and again until spending is brought under control.”

“Qaddafi counted on America to be passive. He counted wrong.”

“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.”

“We have the means to change the laws we find unjust or onerous. We cannot, as citizens, pick and choose the laws we will or will not obey.” (On dismissing 12,000 striking air traffic controllers.)