Ronald Reagan Quotes

81 quotations by 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.

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.

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

Facts are stupid things.

Abortion is advocated only by persons who have themselves been born.

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.

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.

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

You can accomplish much if you don't care who gets the credit.

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.

Damn it, Pierre, what do you want me to do We'll go sit with empty chairs to get those guys back to the table. (To Pierre Trudeau, prime minister of Canada)

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. (Comment while testing a microphone before a broadcast 11 Aug 84)

Anyone that's ever had their kitchen done over knows that it never gets done as soon as you wish it would.

The war in Vietnam threatened to tear our society apart, and the political and philosophical disagreements that separated each side continue, to some extent. It's been said that these memorials reflect a hunger for healing.

Some of your countrymen were unable to distinguish between their native dislike for war and the stainless patriotism of those who suffered its scars. But there has been a rethinking and now we can say to you, and say as a nation, thank you for your courage.

Some say it will bring war to the heavens, but its purpose is to deter war, in the heavens and on earth.

The freedom fighters of Nicaragua ... are the moral equal of our Founding Fathers and the brave men and women of the French Resistance.

The vote on the Peacekeeper is also a vote on Geneva. Rejecting the Peacekeeper will knock the legs out from under the negotiating table. (On importance of the MX missile)

If I thought there was some reason to be concerned about them, I wouldn't be sleeping in this house tonight. (When asked about continued presence of Soviet nuclear submarines along US coastlines)

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

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.

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

Even Albert Einstein reportedly needed help on his 1040 form.

The distance between the present system and our proposal is like comparing the distance between a Model T and the space shuttle. And I should know I've seen both.

The little dictator who went to Moscow in his green fatigues to receive a bear hug did not forsake the doctrine of Lenin when he returned to the West and appeared in a two-piece suit. (On Daniel Ortega Saavedra)

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.

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)

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

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.

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.

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

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, subsidise it.

My belief has always been ... that wherever in this land any individual's constitutional rights are being unjustly denied, it is the obligation of the federal government-at point of bayonet if necessary-to restore that individual's constitutional rights.

This administration is totally colorblind.

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)

The Soviet Union would remain a one-party nation even if an opposition party were permitted-because everyone would join that party.

Democracy is not a fragile flower still it needs cultivating.

The ultimate determinant 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 ideals to which we are dedicated.

We seek a constitutional amendment to permit voluntary school prayer. God should never have been expelled from America's classrooms in the first place.

These young Americans sent a message to terrorists everywhere ... You can run but you can't hide. (On US pilots who captured four terrorists)

Tonight we are launching an effort which holds the promise of changing the course of human history.

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

It doesn't do good to open doors for someone who doesn't have the price to get in. If he has the price, he may not need the laws. There is no law saying the Negro has to live in Harlem or Watts.

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

I'll be like Scarlett O'Hara-I'll think about it tomorrow.

Shouldn't someone tag Mr Kennedy's bold new imaginative program with its proper age Under the tousled boyish haircut is still old Karl Marx-first launched a century ago. There is nothing new in the idea of a government being Big Brother.

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.

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

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.

You know, it was only a generation ago that actors couldn't be buried in the churchyard.

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

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

It's difficult to see that people are starving in this country because food isn't available.(1986)

Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result. (Quoting Churchill)

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

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

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

If we don't want to see the map of Central America covered in a sea of red, eventually lapping at our own borders, we must act now.

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.

The White House is the leakiest place I've ever been in. (On special measures to ensure secrecy of plans to bomb Libya)

My fellow Americans, I must speak to you tonight about a mounting danger in Central America that threatens the security of the United States. This danger will not go away it will grow worse, much worse, if we fail to take action now.

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've often wondered how some people in positions of this kind ... manage without having had any acting experience.

I have come to the conclusion that the 22nd Amendment limiting the presidency to two terms was a mistake. Shouldn't the people have the right to vote for someone as many times as they want to vote for him

I believe Moses was 80 when God first commissioned him for public service.

I think the presidency is an institution over which you have temporary custody.

There were so many candidates on the platform that there were not enough promises to go around.

We know that this mad dog of the Middle East has a goal of a world revolution. (On Muammar Qaddafi of Libya)

Today we have done what we had to do. If necessary, we shall do it again.

If I had as much make-up on as he did, I'd have looked younger, too.

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

Isn't it strange that ... people build walls to keep an enemy out, and there's only one part of the world and one philosophy where they have to build walls to keep their people in

I do not feel betrayed. ... He has a fine record. He is a national hero. (On Oliver L North's work)

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.

I just don't think it's good for us to be run out of town. (Refusing to cancel Secretary of State visit to Moscow)

People don't start wars, governments do.

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

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

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

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