Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

— Ronald Reagan

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.'

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

Recession is when a neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours.

— Ronald Reagan

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!

— Ronald Reagan

The greatest security for Israel is to create new Egypts.

— Ronald Reagan

No matter what time it is, wake me, even if it's in the middle of a Cabinet meeting.

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

Unemployment insurance is a pre-paid vacation for freeloaders.

— Ronald Reagan

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

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.

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

Government always finds a need for whatever money it gets.

— Ronald Reagan

People do not make wars; governments do.

— Ronald Reagan

Back in 1927, an American socialist, Norman Thomas, six times candidate for President on the Socialist Party ticket, said that the American people would never vote for socialism but he said under the name of liberalism the American people would adopt every fragment of the socialist program.

— Ronald Reagan

Yes, across Europe, this wall will fall. For it cannot withstand faith; it cannot withstand truth. The wall cannot withstand freedom.

— Ronald Reagan

Shouldn't someone tag Mr. Kennedy's "bold new imaginative" program with its proper age? Under the tousled boyish haircut it is still old Karl Marx — first launched a century ago. There is nothing new in the idea of a government being Big Brother to us all. Hitler called his "State Socialism" and way before him it was "benevolent monarchy."

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

Yes, across Europe, this wall will fall. For it cannot withstand faith; it cannot withstand truth. The wall cannot withstand freedom.

— Ronald Reagan

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

Regimes planted by bayonets do not take root.

— Ronald Reagan

Government always finds a need for whatever money it gets.

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

So much of our profession is taken up with pretending ... that an actor must spend at least half his waking hours in fantasy.

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

A people free to choose will always choose peace.

— Ronald Reagan

Americans don't go around carrying guns with the idea they're using them to influence other Americans. There's no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

Yes, across Europe, this wall will fall. For it cannot withstand faith; it cannot withstand truth. The wall cannot withstand freedom.

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

I have spent most of my life as a Democrat. I recently have seen fit to follow another course. I believe that the issues confronting us cross party lines.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so.

— Ronald Reagan

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'.

— Ronald Reagan

You and I are told increasingly that we have to choose between a left or right, but I would like to suggest that there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down — up to a man's age-old dream; the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order — or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism, and regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

Those who would trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state have told us that they have a utopian solution of peace without victory. They call their policy "accommodation." And they say if we only avoid any direct confrontation with the enemy, he will forget his evil ways and learn to love us. All who oppose them are indicted as warmongers.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

They say we offer simple answers to complex problems. Well, perhaps there is a simple answer — not an easy answer — but simple.

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

Don't be afraid to see what you see.

— Ronald Reagan

Alexander Hamilton said, "A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one." Let's set the record straight. There is no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there is only one guaranteed way you can have peace — and you can have it in the next second — surrender.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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 last step into a thousand years of darkness. We will keep in mind and remember that Barry Goldwater has faith in us. He has faith that you and I have the ability and the dignity and the right to make our own decisions and determine our own destiny.

— Ronald Reagan

History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

One legislator accused me of having a nineteenth-century attitude on law and order. That is a totally false charge. I have an eighteenth-century attitude. That is when the Founding Fathers made it clear that the safety of law-abiding citizens should be one of the government's primary concerns.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

Fascism was really the basis for the New Deal. It was Mussolini's success in Italy, with his government-directed economy, that led the early New Dealers to say "But Mussolini keeps the trains running on time."

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

When the commander in chief of a nation finds it necessary to order employees of the government or agencies of the government to do things that would technically break the law, he has to be able to declare it legal in order for them to do that.

— Ronald Reagan

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

The smoke from burning marijuana contains many more cancer-causing substances than tobacco. And if that isn’t enough it leads to bronchitis and emphysema. If adults want to take such chances that is their business. But surely the communications media … should let four million youngsters know what they are risking.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

A troubled and afflicted mankind looks to us, pleading for us to keep our rendezvous with destiny; that we will uphold the principles of self-reliance, self-discipline, morality, and, above all, responsible liberty for every individual that we will become that shining city on a hill.

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

I am paying for this microphone!

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

And I have to point out that government doesn't tax to get the money it needs, government always needs the money it gets.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

[Evolution] 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.

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

Let it show on the record that when the American people cried out for economic help, Jimmy Carter took refuge behind a dictionary. Well, if it's a definition he wants, I'll give him one. A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

With regard to the freedom of the individual for choice with regard to abortion, there's one individual who's not being considered at all. That's the one who is being aborted. And I've noticed that everybody that is for abortion has already been born.

— Ronald Reagan

Without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure.

— Ronald Reagan

There you go again. When I opposed Medicare, there was another piece of legislation meeting the same problem before the Congress. I happened to favor the other piece of legislation and thought that it would be better for the senior citizens to provide better care than the one that was finally passed.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

Next Tuesday all of you will go to the polls, will stand there in the polling place and make a decision. I think when you make that decision, it might be well if you would ask yourself, are you better off than you were four years ago?

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

I believe with all my heart that our first priority must be world peace, and that use of force is always and only a last resort, when everything else has failed, and then only with regard to our national security.

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

Thomas Jefferson made a comment about the Presidency and age. He said that one should not worry about one's exact chronological age in reference to his ability to perform one's task. And ever since he told me that, I stopped worrying.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

Intelligence reports say he — Castro — is very worried about me. I'm very worried that we can't come up with something to justify his worrying.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

Honey, I forgot to duck.

— Ronald Reagan

Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty.

— Ronald Reagan

I hope you're all Republican.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

This is not the time for political fun and games. This is the time for a new beginning. I ask you now to put aside any feelings of frustration or helplessness about our political institutions and join me in this dramatic but responsible plan to reduce the enormous burden of Federal taxation on you and your family.

— Ronald Reagan

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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

I never knew anything above Cs.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty.

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

I was going to have an opening statement, but I decided that what I was going to say I wanted to get a lot of attention, so I'm going to wait and leak it.

— Ronald Reagan

Every country and every people has a stake in the Afghan resistance, for the freedom fighters of Afghanistan are defending principles of independence and freedom that form the basis of global security and stability.

— Ronald Reagan

Peace is not the absence of conflict, but the ability to cope with conflict by peaceful means.

— Ronald Reagan

When the chips are down and the decisions are made as to who the candidates will be, then the 11th commandment prevails and everybody goes to work, and that is: Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican.

— Ronald Reagan

With the destructive power of today's weapons, keeping the peace is not just a goal; it's a sacred obligation. But maintaining peace requires more than sincerity and idealism—more than optimism and good will. As you know well, peace is a product of hard, strenuous labor by those dedicated to its preservation. It requires realism, not wishful thinking.

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

Yes, because for many years I was a Democrat.

— Ronald Reagan

By outlawing Solidarity, a free trade organization to which an overwhelming majority of Polish workers and farmers belong, they have made it clear that they never had any intention of restoring one of the most elemental human rights—the right to belong to a free trade union.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

Well, I learned a lot. … You'd be surprised. They're all individual countries.

— Ronald Reagan

Let us be aware that while they [the Soviet leadership] preach the supremacy of the state, declare its omnipotence over individual man, and predict its eventual domination of all peoples on the earth, they are the focus of evil in the modern world.

— Ronald Reagan

So, in your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals, I urge you to beware the temptation of pride, the temptation of blithely declaring 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 and good and evil.

— Ronald Reagan

Some people work an entire lifetime and wonder if they ever made a difference to the world. But the Marines don't have that problem.

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

The only way there could be war is if they start it; we're not going to start a war.

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

Status quo, you know, is Latin for 'the mess we're in'.

— Ronald Reagan

If the big spenders get their way, they'll charge everything on your "Taxpayers Express Card." And believe me, they never leave home without it.

— Ronald Reagan

Not to the extent of throwing up my hands and saying, "Well, it's all over." No. I think whichever generation and at whatever time, when the time comes, the generation that is there, I think will have to go on doing what they believe is right.

— Ronald Reagan

Until now has there ever been a time in which so many of the prophecies are coming together? There have been times in the past when people thought the end of the world was coming, and so forth, but never anything like this.

— Ronald Reagan

All great change in America begins at the dinner table.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.

— Ronald Reagan

Preservation of our environment is not a liberal or conservative challenge, it's common sense.

— Ronald Reagan

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 who are homeless, you might say, by choice.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

You'd be surprised how much being a good actor pays off.

— Ronald Reagan

These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

Recognizing the equality of all men and women, we are willing and able to lift the weak, cradle those who hurt, and nurture the bonds that tie us together as one nation under God.

— Ronald Reagan

Without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure.

— Ronald Reagan

America's future rests in a thousand dreams inside your hearts. It rests in the message of hope in songs of a man so many young Americans admire -- New Jersey's own, Bruce Springsteen.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience.

— Ronald Reagan

If you read the letter, you will find there is nothing wrong with it.

— Ronald Reagan

To a few of us here today this is a solemn and most momentous occasion, and yet in the history of our nation it is a commonplace occurrence. The orderly transfer of authority as called for in the Constitution routinely takes place, as it has for almost two centuries, and few of us stop to think how unique we really are. In the eyes of many in the world, this every-four-year ceremony we accept as normal is nothing less than a miracle.

— Ronald Reagan

If we look to the answer as to why for so many years we achieved so much, prospered as no other people on earth, it was because here in this land we unleashed the energy and individual genius of man to a greater extent than has ever been done before. Freedom and the dignity of the individual have been more available and assured here than in any other place on earth. The price for this freedom at times has been high, but we have never been unwilling to pay the price.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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. It is a weapon that we as Americans do have. Let that be understood by those who practice terrorism and prey upon their neighbors.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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're not bound by that same limitation? We must act today in order to preserve tomorrow.

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

The decision by the seven-man majority in Roe v. Wade has so far been made to stick. But the Court's decision has by no means settled the debate. Instead, Roe v. Wade has become a continuing prod to the conscience of the nation.

— Ronald Reagan

We cannot diminish the value of one category of human life — the unborn — without diminishing the value of all human life.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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

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

— Ronald Reagan

The real question today is not when human life begins, but, What is the value of human life?

— Ronald Reagan

The abortionist who reassembles the arms and legs of a tiny baby to make sure all its parts have been torn from its mother's body can hardly doubt whether it is a human being.

— Ronald Reagan

Regrettably, we live at a time when some persons do not value all human life. They want to pick and choose which individuals have value.

— Ronald Reagan

As a nation, we must choose between the sanctity of life ethic and the "quality of life" ethic. I have no trouble identifying the answer our nation has always given to this basic question, and the answer that I hope and pray it will give in the future.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

We must all educate ourselves to the reality of the horrors taking place. Doctors today know that unborn children can feel a touch within the womb and that they respond to pain.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

Late-term abortions, especially when the baby survives, but is then killed by starvation, neglect, or suffocation, show once again the link between abortion and infanticide. The time to stop both is now.

— Ronald Reagan

It is possible that the Supreme Court itself may overturn its abortion rulings. We need only recall that in Brown v. Board of Education the court reversed its own earlier "separate-but-equal" decision.

— Ronald Reagan

As we continue to work to overturn Roe v. Wade, we must also continue to lay the groundwork for a society in which abortion is not the accepted answer to unwanted pregnancy. Pro-life people have already taken heroic steps, often at great personal sacrifice, to provide for unwed mothers.

— Ronald Reagan

We will never recognize the true value of our own lives until we affirm the value in the life of others.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

We cannot survive as a free nation when some men decide that others are not fit to live and should be abandoned to abortion or infanticide. My Administration is dedicated to the preservation of America as a free land, and there is no cause more important for preserving that freedom than affirming the transcendent right to life of all human beings, the right without which no other rights have any meaning.

— Ronald Reagan

I have only one thing to say to the tax increasers: Go ahead, make my day.

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

I intend to go right on appointing highly qualified individuals of the highest personal integrity to the bench, individuals who understand the danger of short-circuiting the electoral process and disenfranchising the people through judicial activism.

— Ronald Reagan

We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them — this morning, as they prepared for their journey, and waved good-bye, and "slipped the surly bonds of earth" to "touch the face of God."

— Ronald Reagan

We're going forward with research on a new Orient Express that could, by the end of the decade, take off from Dulles Airport, accelerate up to 25 times the speed of sound, attaining low Earth orbit or flying to Tokyo within two hours.

— Ronald Reagan

Too much SALT isn’t good for you.

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

The other day, someone told me the difference between a democracy and a people's democracy. It's the same difference between a jacket and a straitjacket.

— Ronald Reagan

The charge has been made that the United States has shipped weapons to Iran as ransom payment for the release of American hostages in Lebanon, that the United States undercut its allies and secretly violated American policy against trafficking with terrorists.... Those charges are utterly false.... We did not — repeat — did not trade weapons or anything else for hostages, nor will we.

— Ronald Reagan

The simple truth is, 'I don't remember — period.'

— Ronald Reagan

A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.

— Ronald Reagan

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

If a tax hike makes it to my desk, I'll veto it in less time than it takes Vanna White to turn the letters V-E-T-O!

— Ronald Reagan

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'.

— Ronald Reagan

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

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.

— Ronald Reagan

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 to recognize shortcomings and seek solutions.

— Ronald Reagan

If we ever forget that we're one nation under God, then we will be one nation gone under.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

The ten most dangerous words in the English language are "Hi, I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."

— Ronald Reagan

Blood that has soaked into the sands of a beach is all of one color. America stands unique in the world: the only country not founded on race but on a way, an ideal. Not in spite of but because of our polyglot background, we have had all the strength in the world. That is the American way.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

I hope we once again have 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.

— Ronald Reagan

The lesson of all this was, of course, that because we're a great nation, our challenges seem complex. It will always be this way. But as long as we remember our first principles and believe in ourselves, the future will always be ours. And something else we learned: Once you begin a great movement, there's no telling where it will end. We meant to change a nation, and instead, we changed a world.

— Ronald Reagan

"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.

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

Government always finds a need for whatever money it gets.

— Ronald Reagan

Let me offer lesson number one about America: All great change in America begins at the dinner table. So, tomorrow night in the kitchen I hope the talking begins. 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

We've done our part. And as I walk off into the city streets, a final word to the men and women of the Reagan revolution, the men and women across America who for eight years did the work that brought America back. My friends: We did it. We weren't just marking time. We made a difference. We made the city stronger. We made the city freer, and we left her in good hands. All in all, not bad, not bad at all. And so, good-bye, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

I do not believe in taking away the right of the citizen to own guns for sporting, hunting and so forth, or for home defense. But I do believe that an AK-47, a machine gun, is not a sporting weapon.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

We have found, in our country, that when people have the right to make decisions as close to home as possible, they usually make the right decisions.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

All great change in America begins at the dinner table.

— Ronald Reagan

Although I held public office for a total of sixteen years, I also thought of myself as a citizen-politician, not a career one. Every now and then when I was in government, I would remind my associates that "When we start thinking of government as 'us' instead of 'them,' we've been here too long." By that I mean that elected officeholders need to retain a certain skepticism about the perfectibility of government.

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

When you see all that rhetorical smoke billowing up from the Democrats, well ladies and gentleman, I'd follow the example of their nominee; don't inhale.

— Ronald Reagan

We are never defeated unless we give up on God.

— Ronald Reagan

Well I've said it before and I'll say it again — America's best days are yet to come. Our proudest moments are yet to be. Our most glorious achievements are just ahead.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

Man is not free unless government is limited.

— Ronald Reagan

This fellow they've nominated claims he's the new Thomas Jefferson. Well let me tell you something; I knew Thomas Jefferson. He was a friend of mine and Governor... You're no Thomas Jefferson!"

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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. Thank you, my friends. May God always bless you.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

Let's close the place down and see if anybody notices.

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

Socialists ignore the side of man that is of the spirit. They can provide shelter, fill your belly with bacon and beans, treat you when you are ill, all the things that are guaranteed to a prisoner or a slave. They don't understand that we dream — yes, even of some time owning a yacht.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

I'm not smart enough to lie.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

Liberals fought poverty and poverty won.

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

You get to know people as individuals. The dreams of people may differ, but everybody wants their dreams to come true. And America, above all places, gives us the freedom to do that.

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

We don't intend to turn the Republican Party over to the traitors in the battle just ended. We will have no more of those candidates who are pledged to the same goals of our opposition and who seek our support. Turning the party over to the so-called moderates wouldn't make any sense at all.

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

Don't be afraid to see what you see.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

One picture is worth 1,000 denials.

— Ronald Reagan

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

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.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

One picture is worth 1,000 denials.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

Man is not free unless government is limited.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

Peace is not absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

I've often said there's nothing better for the inside of a man than the outside of a horse.

— Ronald Reagan

We are never defeated unless we give up on God.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

Trust, but verify.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

Facts are stubborn things.

— Ronald Reagan

Status quo, you know, is Latin for 'the mess we're in'.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

We are never defeated unless we give up on God.

— Ronald Reagan

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!

— Ronald Reagan

All great change in America begins at the dinner table.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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

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

— Ronald Reagan

If we love our country, we should also love our countrymen.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

How can a president not be an actor?

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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

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

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

Man is not free unless government is limited.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

All great change in America begins at the dinner table.

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

One picture is worth 1,000 denials.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

If you're explaining, you're losing.

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

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.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

Recession is when a neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours.

— Ronald Reagan