Top 100 Ronald Reagan Quotes
#1. 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.
Ronald Reagan
#2. In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem, government IS the problem. It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant, it's just that they know so much that isn't so.
Ronald Reagan
#4. The best way to get over a dog's death is to get another soon.
Ronald Reagan
#5. 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.
Ronald Reagan
#6. A university is a place where ancient tradition thrives alongside the most revolutionary ideas. Perhaps as no other institution, a university is simultaneously committed to the day before yesterday and the day after tomorrow.
Ronald Reagan
#7. 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.
Ronald Reagan
#8. I know at times we feel that perhaps in our prayers we ask too much. Or possibly we feel something isn't important enough to be bothering God with it. Maybe we should let Him decide these things.
Ronald Reagan
#9. I would have voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Ronald Reagan
#10. The future is best decided by ballots, not bullets.
Ronald Reagan
#11. We need more Democrats in the Senate -Like Custer needed more arrows.
Ronald Reagan
#12. Perhaps no custom reveals our character as a Nation so clearly as our celebration of Thanksgiving Day.
Ronald Reagan
#13. If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under.
Ronald Reagan
#14. Government should uphold-and not undermine-those institutions which are custodians of the very values upon which civilization is founded: religion, education and, above all, family.
Ronald Reagan
#15. The person who pays an ounce of principle for a pound of popularity gets badly cheated.
Ronald Reagan
#16. I feel that the whole Western World will benefit by the resurrection of the neutron bomb project.
Ronald Reagan
#17. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom.
Ronald Reagan
#19. You can't help those who simply will not be helped. One problem that we've had, even in the best of times, is people who are sleeping on the grates, the homeless who are homeless, you might say, by choice.
Ronald Reagan
#20. Our military strength is a prerequisite to peace, but let it be clear we maintain this strength in the hope it will never be used.
Ronald Reagan
#21. Unemployment insurance is a pre-paid vacation for freeloaders.
Ronald Reagan
#22. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. And get a massage - you look really stressed
Ronald Reagan
#24. 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.
Ronald Reagan
#25. Were not cutting the budget simply for the sake of sounder financial management. This is only a first step toward returning power to the states and communities, only a first step toward reordering the relationship between citizen and government.
Ronald Reagan
#26. When PLO sniper fire is followed by 14 hours of Israeli bombardment, that's stretching the definition of defensive action too far.
Ronald Reagan
#27. All great change in America begins at the dinner table.
Ronald Reagan
#28. One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It's very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project, most people are a little reluctant to oppose anything that suggests medical care for people who possibly can't afford it.
Ronald Reagan
#29. If it takes a bloodbath, let's get it over with.
Ronald Reagan
#30. Freedom prospers only where the blessings of God are avidly sought, and humbly accepted.
Ronald Reagan
#31. To sit back hoping that someday, someway, someone will make things right is to go on feeding the crocodile, hoping he will eat you last - but eat you he will.
Ronald Reagan
#32. We've got to teach history based not on what's in fashion, but what's important.
Ronald Reagan
#33. We know that this mad dog of the Middle East has a goal of a world revolution. (On Muammar Qaddafi of Libya)
Ronald Reagan
#34. The doors of this Library are open now and are all welcome. The judgment of history is left to you, the people. I have no fears of that, for we have done our best. And so I say, come and learn from it.
Ronald Reagan
#35. You can tell a lot about a fellow's character by his way of eating jellybeans.
Ronald Reagan
#36. They don't worship at the altar of forced busing and mandatory quotas. They don't believe you can remedy past discrimination by mandating new discrimination. (Defending his nominees for Civil Rights Commission)
Ronald Reagan
#37. As two proud and independent peoples, there is much that distinguishes us one from the other, but there is also much that we share: a vast continent, with its common hardships and uncommon duties; generations of mutual respect and support, and an abiding friendship that grows ever stronger.
Ronald Reagan
#38. Our National Motto - 'In God We Trust' - was not chosen lightly. It reflects a basic recognition that there is a divine authority in the universe to which this nation owes homage.
Ronald Reagan
#39. We stand together as we did two centuries ago, One people under God determined that our future shall be worthy of our past.
Ronald Reagan
#40. To grasp and hold a vision, that is the very essence of successful leadership-not only on the movie set where I learned it, but everywhere.
Ronald Reagan
#41. Yes, deficits are a problem. I've been saying so for more than a quarter of a century now. But the problem is not the size of the deficit, it's the size of government's claim on our economy.
Ronald Reagan
#42. Hope remains the highest reality, the age-old power.
Ronald Reagan
#43. 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.
Ronald Reagan
#44. 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.
Ronald Reagan
#45. Tax increases don't eliminate deficits they increase govt. spending.
Ronald Reagan
#46. And there is the matter of abortion. We must with calmness and resolve help the vast majority of our fellow Americans understand that the more than 112 million abortions performed in America in 1980 amount to a great moral evil, an assault on the sacredness of human life.
Ronald Reagan
#47. 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.
Ronald Reagan
#48. It is up to us in our time to choose, and choose wisely, between the hard but necessary task of preserving peace and freedom, and the temptation to ignore our duty and blindly hope for the best while the enemies of freedom grow stronger day by day.
Ronald Reagan
#49. America is still an eagle, and she's ready to soar again.
Ronald Reagan
#50. I have left orders to be awakened at any time during national emergency, even if I'm in a cabinet meeting.
Ronald Reagan
#51. An America that is militarily and economically strong is not enough. The world must see an America that is morally strong with a creed and a vision. This is what has led us to dare and achieve. For us, values count. Speech, New York City, December 12, 1983
Ronald Reagan
#53. 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.
Ronald Reagan
#54. I sometimes think Adam and Eve were Russians. They didn't have a roof over their head, nothing to wear, but they had one apple between them and they thought that was Paradise.
Ronald Reagan
#55. This country was founded and built by people with great dreams and the courage to take great risks.
Ronald Reagan
#56. We are never defeated unless we give up on God.
Ronald Reagan
#57. State problems should involve state solutions.
Ronald Reagan
#58. And children, if your parents haven't been teaching you what it means to be an American, let 'em know and nail 'em on it. That would be a very American thing to do.
Ronald Reagan
#59. Diplomacy, of course, is a subtle and nuanced craft, so much so that it's said that when the most wily diplomat of the nineteenth-century passed away, other diplomats asked, on reports of his death, What do you suppose the old fox meant by that?
Ronald Reagan
#60. Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book.
Ronald Reagan
#61. I was not a great communicator, but I communicated great things.
Ronald Reagan
#62. The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would steal them away.
Ronald Reagan
#63. Congressional mistakes have dramatically increased immigration through a series of what I believe were ill-advised actions going back to 1965 when the basic notions of our immigration laws were revised. In 1990, Congress opened the floodgates by passing a 35-percent increase in legal immigration.
Ronald Reagan
#64. Die-hard conservatives thought that if I couldn't get everything I asked for, I should jump off the cliff with the flag flying-go down in flames. No, if I can get 70 or 80 percent of what it is I'm trying to get ... I'll take that and then continue to try to get the rest in the future.
Ronald Reagan
#65. Young Americans must never again be sent to fight and die unless we are prepared to let them win.
Ronald Reagan
#66. The American people cannot close their eyes to abuses of human rights and injustice, whether they occur among friend or adversary or even on our own shores.
Ronald Reagan
#67. You know, it was only a generation ago that actors couldn't be buried in the churchyard.
Ronald Reagan
#68. I thought the function of the government was to promote the general welfare, not to provide it.
Ronald Reagan
#69. We cannot diminish the value of one category of human life
the unborn
without diminishing the value of all human life ... there is no cause more important.
Ronald Reagan
#70. With our eyes fixed on the future, but recognizing the realities of today, we will achieve our destiny to be as a shining city on a hill for all mankind to see.
Ronald Reagan
#71. I notice that everbody who is Pro-Abortion already has been born.
Ronald Reagan
#72. Generations hence, parents will take their children to these woods to show them how the land must have looked to the first Pilgrims and pioneers. And as Americans wander through these forests, climb these mountains, they will sense the love and majesty of the Creator of all of that.
Ronald Reagan
#74. Respect for human rights is not social work; it is not merely an act of compassion. It is the first obligation of government and the source of its legitimacy.
Ronald Reagan
#75. We should never fear to negotiate, nor negotiate from fear.
Ronald Reagan
#76. Blondes have the hottest kisses. Red-heads are fair-to-middling torrid, and brunettes are the frigidest of all. It's something to do with hormones, no doubt.
Ronald Reagan
#77. Welfare's purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence.
Ronald Reagan
#78. In an atmosphere of liberty, artists and patrons are free to think the unthinkable and create the audacious; they are free to make both horrendous mistakes and glorious celebrations.
Ronald Reagan
#79. The purpose of America is to unleash the full talent and genius of every individual.
Ronald Reagan
#80. Now, so there will be no misunderstanding, it's 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.
Ronald Reagan
#81. 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
Ronald Reagan
#82. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
Ronald Reagan
#84. If I'd gotten the job I wanted at Montgomery Ward, I suppose I would never have left Illinois.
Ronald Reagan
#85. I've heard drug experts say they believe if penicillin were discovered today, the FDA wouldn't license it.
Ronald Reagan
#86. Could there be anything but widespread misery, where a privileged few controlled a nation's wealth, while millions labored for a pittance, and millions more were desperate for want of employment?
Ronald Reagan
#87. We will remain steady. We will pursue every avenue in the search for peace and stability.
Ronald Reagan
#88. When cruelty is inflicted on innocent people, it discredits whatever cause.
Ronald Reagan
#89. Where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost.
Ronald Reagan
#91. If you don't know whether a body is alive or dead, you would never bury it. I think this consideration itself should be enough for all of us to insist on protecting the unborn.
Ronald Reagan
#92. Middle age is when you're faced with two temptations and you choose the one that will get you home by nine o'clock.
Ronald Reagan
#93. Our forbearance should never be misunderstood. Our reluctance for conflict should not be misjudged as a failure of will. When action is required to preserve our national security, we will act.
Ronald Reagan
#94. A rebuke to Cong. How could it be otherwise in a body to which the people send 150 lawyers whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing & talk by the hour.
Ronald Reagan
#95. Of the many messages found in the Hanukah story, the one that has always inspired me most is this: with a strong faith in the Almighty, nothing is impossible; and without the help of our Creator, we labor in vain.
Ronald Reagan
#96. One of mankind's problems is we keep committing the same errors.
Ronald Reagan
#97. [A woman waiting for him in the Kremlin asked Gobachev] "Was communism invented by a politician or a scientist?" [He replied] "Well, a politician." She said, "That explains it. The scientist would have tried it on mice first."
Ronald Reagan
#98. We seek a constitutional amendment to permit voluntary school prayer. God should never have been expelled from America's classrooms in the first place.
Ronald Reagan
#99. Our federal tax system is, in short, utterly impossible, utterly unjust and completely counterproductive ... [It] reeks with injustice, and is fundamentally un-American
Ronald Reagan
#100. 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.
Ronald Reagan
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