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Reagan: The Great Communicator In His Own Words.
Personal Archives
| 02-08-03
| PsyOp
Posted on 02/08/2003 12:55:57 AM PST by PsyOp
After I posted my first couple of quote compilations I was asked by former Freeper 2Treivers if I had any Reagan quotes in my collection. It turned out that I had just a few, too few. So, for the last year I have been going through his speeches and addresses to cull quotes. What you see here is about half of what I've collected, and I have lots of his works still to read. I had hoped to get these posted in time for his birthday, but editing turned out to be harder than I thought--Choosing what to cut was difficult. But, as The Great Communicator himself once said, "It's a time for choosing...."
P.S. This is really long, so cut and paste to a word doc before trying to print.
Happy Birthday Mr. Reagan.... We will always remember you.
When that fool Reagan said that the Soviet Union was a failed experiment headed for the ash heap of history, I knew he was a demagogue. When that fool Reagan said that the Soviet Union was an evil empire, I knew he was a dangerous kook. When that fool Reagan said that we could end the Cold War by escalating the arms race, I knew the odds favored nuclear annihilation. When the Soviet Union went broke, dissolved, and repudiated its past, I knew it was all Gorbachev's genius, and that fool Reagan had nothing to do with it. Because if that fool Reagan was right all along... ...what kind of fool am I? - Jules Feiffer.
ABORTION
I think one of the hardest decisions that I ever - I had to make had to do with the abortion legislation because it was a subject I've never given any thought to before. Suddenly I was con fronted by a Legislature with a bill which they said they would amend to whatever was acceptable to me. For the first time I had to really face this subject and figure out morally what did I believe was right or wrong. Students. - Governor Ronald Reagan, March 8, 1973.
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. Shortly after the Roe v. Wade decision, Professor John Hart Ely, now Dean of Stanford Law School, wrote that the opinion "is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be." Nowhere do the plain words of the Constitution even hint at a "right" so sweeping as to permit abortion up to the time the child is ready to be born. Yet that is what the Court ruled. - President Ronald Reagan, “Abortion and the Conscience of America”, The Human Life Review, Spring 1983.
ACCOUNTABILITY
There is only one way to make government bite the bullet on inflation, on high taxes, on all those things that should be a matter of concern. And that is to hold all elected officials accountable. Match their performance with their promises, and if you find some who don't measure up, vote them out of office. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Oct. 15, 1974.
ACTION
It is time, indeed, to do more than just talk of a better world. It is time to act. And we will act when nations cease to try to impose their ways upon others. And we will act when they realize that we, for whom the achievement of freedom has come dear, will do what we must to preserve it from assault. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the 40th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, New York, October 24, 1985.
ADVICE
I know that old people are always supposed to give advice, so I'll prove I'm old and give you some... Today with all the flood of misinformation that comes your way, be careful. Even the figures I've given you here, don't take my word for it. Check it out. Look them up. They are always in public record. But don't become a sucker generation; don't just take someone's viewpoint on what things are. - Governor Ronald Reagan, to Students, May 5, 1973.
AFGHANISTAN
2 years ago today, massive Soviet military forces invaded the sovereign country of Afghanistan and began an attempt to subjugate one of the most fiercely independent peoples of the world. Despite the presence of 90,000 Soviet combat troops, a recent increase of some 5,000, the courageous people of Afghanistan have fought back. Today they effectively deny Soviet forces control of most of Afghanistan. Efforts by the Soviets to establish a puppet government in the Soviet image, which could govern a conquered land, have failed. Soviet control extends little beyond the major cities, and even there the Afghan freedomfighters often hold sway by night and sometimes even by day. The battle for Afghan independence continues. - President Ronald Reagan, Statement on the Situation in Afghanistan, December 27, 1981.
In a time of prosperity, we do not think of hunger and hardship. In a time of peace, we do not think of suffering and war. In a time when our families are together and healthy, we do not think of the pain we would feel if they were pulled apart. Yet, for the people of Afghanistan, it is impossible to escape such thoughts, because terror, hardship, and suffering have become an everyday way of life ever since the Soviet Union brutally invaded and occupied their country over five years ago. - President Ronald Reagan, speech, Afghanistan Day, March 21, 1985.
The Soviets have become frustrated with their inability to crush the spirit of the Afghan Freedom Fighters and are increasingly turning their military might against the civilian population of the country, forcing hundreds of thousands more innocent people into exile away from their homeland. - President Ronald Reagan, speech, Afghanistan Day, March 21, 1985.
AGGRESSION
And make no mistake about it, this attack was not just against ourselves or the Republic of Korea. This was the Soviet Union against the world and the moral precepts which guide human relations among people everywhere. It was an act of barbarism born of a society which wantonly disregards individual rights and the value of human life and seeks constantly to expand and dominate other nations. - President Ronald Reagan, in a televised speech following the Soviets' downing of a Korean airliner, September 5, 1983.
Americans resort to force only when we must. We have never been aggressors. We have always struggled to defend freedom and democracy. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1984.
AMERICA.
The American dream is not that every man must be level with every other man. The American dream is that every man must be free to become whatever God intends he should become. - President Ronald Reagan, speech to The Creative Society, 1968.
There is no question that we have failed to live up to the dreams of the founding fathers many times and in many places. Sometimes we do better than others. But all in all, the one thing we must be on guard against is thinking that because of this, the system has failed. The system has not failed. Some human beings have failed the system. - Governor Ronald Reagan, June 21, 1973.
I don’t believe that the people I’ve met in almost every state in the union are ready to consign this, the last island of freedom, to the dustbin of history. - Ronald Reagan, campaign speech. 1976.
[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. - President Ronald Reagan, his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, July 17, 1980.
It is time for us to realize that we are too great a nation to limit ourselves to small dreams. We’re not, as some would have us believe, doomed to an inevitable decline. I Do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing. - Ronald Reagan, 1st inaugural address, January 20, 1981.
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 that price. - Ronald Reagan, First Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981.
There's a new spirit, I can tell you, sweeping America, and you're part of it. The Navy's pride and professionalism campaign is part of it. The push for quality by American workers is part of it. That young Marine sergeant, Jimmy Lopez, and the naval aviator, Commander Don Scherer, who wouldn't bend to their Iranian captors during the days of the hostages, were part of it. Maybe some of you don't know that Sergeant Jimmy Lopez, before he left his place of confinement in Iran, wrote on the wall in Spanish -- which evidently they could not understand, ``Long live the red, white, and blue.'' - Ronald Reagan, Remarks on Board the U.S.S. Constellation, August 20, 1981.
Let it be said of us that we, too, did not fail; that we, too, worked together to bring America through difficult times. Let us so conduct ourselves that two centuries from now, another Congress and another President, meeting in this Chamber as we are meeting, will speak of us with pride, saying that we met the test and preserved for them in their day the sacred flame of liberty -- this last, best hope of man on Earth. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 26, 1982.
Faith in God, patriotism, freedom, the love of freedom, family, work, neighborhood -- the heart and soul of America's past and the promise of her future. If we stand together and live up to these principles, we will not fail. - Ronald Reagan, Address Before a Joint Session of the Alabama State Legislature in Montgomery, March 15, 1982.
I know here that you will agree with me that standing up for America also means standing up for the God who has so blessed our land. I believe this country hungers for a spiritual revival. I believe it longs to see traditional values reflected in public policy again. To those who cite the first amendment as reason for excluding God from more and more of our institutions and everyday life, may I just say: The first amendment of the Constitution was not written to protect the people of this country from religious values; it was written to protect religious values from government tyranny. - Ronald Reagan, Address Before a Joint Session of the Alabama State Legislature in Montgomery, March 15, 1982.
That's the one big difference between the recovery America is headed for today and the shaky, temporary recoveries of the recent past. This one is built to last. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation on the Economy, October 13, 1982.
Together we've chosen a new road for America. It's a far better road. We need only the courage to see it through. I know we can. Throughout our history, we Americans have proven again and again that no challenge is too big for a free, united people. Together, we can do it again. We can do it by slowly but surely working our way back to prosperity that will mean jobs for all who are willing to work, and fulfillment for all who still cherish the American dream.
We can do it, my fellow Americans, by staying the course.. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation on the Economy, October 13, 1982.
I’ve always believed that this land was set aside in an uncommon way, that a divine plan placed this great continent between the oceans to be found by a people from every corner of the earth who had a special love of faith, freedom and peace. - Ronald Reagan, speech in Washington D.C. November 11, 1982.
We have a long way to go, but thanks to the courage, patience, and strength of our people, America is on the mend. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1983.
From coast to coast, on the job and in classrooms and laboratories, at new construction sites and in churches and community groups, neighbors are helping neighbors. And they've already begun the building, the research, the work, and the giving that will make our country great again.
I believe this, because I believe in them--in the strength of their hearts and minds, in the commitment that each one of them brings to their daily lives, be they high or humble. The challenge for us in government is to be worthy of them--to make government a help, not a hindrance to our people in the challenging but promising days ahead.
If we do that, if we care what our children and our children's children will say of us, if we want them one day to be thankful for what we did here in these temples of freedom, we will work together to make America better for our having been here--not just in this year or this decade but in the next century and beyond. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1983.
America is on the mend. - Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on the 1984 Budget, January 29, 1983.
At home and abroad, our country is on the right track again. As a nation, we've closed the books on a long, dark period of failure and self-doubt and set a new course. - President Ronald Reagan, Remarks at the Annual Convention of the American Legion in Seattle, Washington, August 23, 1983.
Would America be America if, in their hour of need, we abandoned our nearest neighbors? From the tip of Tierra del Fuego to Alaska's Point Barrow, we're all Americans. We worship the same God, cherish the same freedom. Can we stand idly by and allow a totalitarian minority to destroy our common heritage? - President Ronald Reagan, Remarks at the Annual Convention of the American Legion in Seattle, Washington, August 23, 1983.
We can be proud of our heritage, and we need never hide from our roots. The world we live in is not an easy one, but we've inherited a noble mission, a mission that casts a beacon of hope for all the Earth's people. - President Ronald Reagan, Remarks at the Annual Convention of the American Legion in Seattle, Washington, August 23, 1983.
America, more than anything, wants lasting peace -- peace with liberty, with justice, and with the freedom to follow the dictates of God and conscience. To succeed, we will need wisdom, strength, and imagination. We'll need patience and vigor. But to seek anything less would be to deny our heritage and the real meaning of our great nation. - President Ronald Reagan, Remarks at the Annual Convention of the American Legion in Seattle, Washington, August 23, 1983.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, I don't believe for one minute America's best days are behind her. And judging by their confidence, neither do the American people. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on the First Session of the 98th Congress, November 19, 1983.
America is too great for small dreams. - Ronald Reagan, speech to Congress. January 1, 1984.
For a time we forgot the American dream isn't one of making government bigger; it's keeping faith with the mighty spirit of free people under God. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1984.
A society bursting with opportunities, reaching for its future with confidence, sustained by faith, fair play, and a conviction that good and courageous people will flourish when they're free -- these are the secrets of a strong and prosperous America at peace with itself and the world. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1984.
The heart of America is strong; it's good and true. The cynics were wrong; America never was a sick society. We're seeing rededication to bedrock values of faith, family, work, neighborhood, peace, and freedom -- values that help bring us together as one people, from the youngest child to the most senior citizen. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1984.
America has always been greatest when we dared to be great. We can reach for greatness again. We can follow our dreams to distant stars, living and working in space for peaceful, economic, and scientific gain. Tonight, I am directing NASA to develop a permanently manned space station and to do it within a decade. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1984.
We dare not shirk our responsibility to keep America free, secure, and at peace. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1984.
We can develop America's next frontier. We can strengthen our traditional values. And we can build a meaningful peace to protect our loved ones and this shining star of faith that has guided millions from tyranny to the safe harbor of freedom, progress, and hope. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1984.
How can we not believe in the greatness of America? How can we not do what is right and needed to preserve this last best hope of man on Earth? After all our struggles to restore America, to revive confidence in our country, hope for our future, after all our hard-won victories earned through the patience and courage of every citizen, we cannot, must not, and will not turn back. We will finish our job. How could we do less? We're Americans. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1984.
I've never felt more strongly that America's best days and democracy's best days lie ahead. We're a powerful force for good. With faith and courage, we can perform great deeds and take freedom's next step. And we will. We will carry on the tradition of a good and worthy people who have brought light where there was darkness, warmth where there was cold, medicine where there was disease, food where there was hunger, and peace where there was only bloodshed.
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, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1984.
How can anyone not believe in the dream of America? - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation, August 18, 1984.
Let us renew our faith and our hope. We have every right to dream heroic dreams. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation, August 18, 1984.
America's destiny is back in your hands. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation, August 18, 1984.
In this springtime of hope, some lights seem eternal; America's is. - President Ronald Reagan, RNC speech, August 23, 1984.
The poet called Miss Liberty's torch “the lamp beside the golden door.” Well, that was the entrance to America, and it still is. And now you really know why we're here tonight. - President Ronald Reagan, RNC speech, August 23, 1984.
We must restore America's ability to defend itself and fulfill its responsibilities as a trustee of freedom and peace in the world... - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on Administration Policies, August 25, 1984.
There must be no wavering by us, nor any doubts by others, that America will meet her responsibilities to remain free, secure, and at peace. - Ronald Reagan, Second Inaugural Address, January 21, 1985.
There's no story more heartening in our history than the progress that we've made toward the brotherhood of man that God intended for us. Let us resolve there will be no turning back or hesitation on the road to an America rich in dignity and abundant with opportunity for all our citizens.. - Ronald Reagan, Second Inaugural Address, January 21, 1985.
America must remain freedom's staunchest friend, for freedom is our best ally. - Ronald Reagan, Second Inaugural Address, January 21, 1985.
My fellow citizens, our Nation is poised for greatness. We must do what we know is right and do it with all our might. Let history say of us, "These were golden years—when the American Revolution was reborn, when freedom gained new life, when America reached for her best." - Ronald Reagan, Second Inaugural Address, January 21, 1985.
So, let me today speak for a united people. Let me say simply: We're Americans. We love this country. We love what she stands for, and we will always defend her.... We live for freedom -- our own, our children's -- and we will always stand ready to sacrifice for that freedom. - President Ronald Reagan, Remarks at the Annual Convention of the American Bar Association, July 8, 1985.
America is committed to the world because so much of the world is inside America. After all, only a few miles from this very room is our Statue of Liberty, past which life began anew for millions, where the peoples from nearly every country in this hall joined to build these United States. The blood of each nation courses through the American vein and feeds the spirit that compels us to involve ourselves in the fate of this good Earth. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the 40th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, New York, October 24, 1985.
In this storm-tossed world of terrorists and totalitarians, America must always champion freedom, for freedom is the one tide that will lead us to the safe and open harbor of peace. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1986.
The past few days when I've been at that window upstairs, I've thought a bit of the `shining city upon a hill.' The phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the America he imagined. What he imagined was important because he was an early Pilgrim, an early freedom man. He journeyed here on what today we'd call a little wooden boat; and like the other Pilgrims, he was looking for a home that would be free. I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still. And how stands the city on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure, and happier than it was 8 years ago. But more than that: After 200 years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she's still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home. - President Ronald Reagan, President's Farewell Address, January, 1989.
AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
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. - Ronald Reagan, A Time for Choosing Speech, 1964.
By Yorktown, they were veterans, but they were still not soldiers. They were farmers, backwoodsmen, tradesmen, clerks, and laborers--common men from all walks of life, anxious to return to their families and the building of a nation. On that day in 1781 a philosophy found a people, and the world would never be the same. - President Ronald Reagan, Remarks at the Bicentennial Observance of the Battle of Yorktown in Virginia, October 19, 1981.
My fellow citizens, our nation is poised for greatness. We must do what we know is right, and do it with all our might. Let history say of us: ``These were golden years--when the American Revolution was reborn, when freedom gained new life, and America reached for her best." - President Ronald Reagan, 2d Inaugural Address, January 21, 1985.
AMERICANS
The problems we face are problems that affect all our people. And all our people have both the right and the obligation to help solve them. Unless people control government, the government will control them. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Aug 6, 1973.
We are the showcase of the future. And it is within our power to mold that future - this year and for decades to come. It can be as grand and as great as we make it. No crisis is beyond the capacity of our people to solve; no challenge too great. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Jan. 5, 1974.
With God's help, we can and will resolve the problems which now confront us.... And, after all, why shouldn't we believe that? We are Americans. - Ronald Reagan, First Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981.
I believe we, the Americans of today, are ready to act worthy of ourselves, ready to do what must be done to ensure happiness and liberty for ourselves, our children and our children's children. - Ronald Reagan, First Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981.
We hear much of special interest groups. Our concern must be for a special interest group that has been too long neglected. It knows no sectional boundaries or ethnic and racial divisions, and it crosses political party lines. It is made up of men and women who raise our food, patrol our streets, man our mines and our factories, teach our children, keep our homes, and heal us when we are sick — professionals, industrialists, shopkeepers, clerks, cabbies, and truckdrivers. They are, in short, "We the people," this breed called Americans. - Ronald Reagan, First Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981.
We must not be timid. We will restore the freedom of all men and women to excel and to create. We will unleash the energy and genius of the American people, traits which have never failed us. - Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation on the Economy, February 5, 1981.
I don't know about you but I'm getting tired of whining voices telling us we can't do this and we can't do that. . . . Don't tell Americans what they can't do, just tell them what needs doing and then let them surprise you with their ingenuity. - Ronald Reagan. Speech on recession, Jan. 1982.
We speak with pride and admiration of that little band of Americans who overcame insuperable odds to set this nation on course 200 years ago. But our glory didn't end with them. Americans ever since have emulated their deeds. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 26, 1982.
Together we have made a New Beginning, but we have only begun. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 26, 1982.
We're the most generous people on Earth. But how about having a little compassion left over for those Americans who sit around the table at night after dinner, trying to figure out how to pay their own bills, keep the kids in school, and keep up with higher inflation and higher taxes year after year? - Ronald Reagan, Address Before a Joint Session of the Alabama State Legislature in Montgomery, March 15, 1982.
But the big story about America today is the way that millions of confident, caring people -- those extraordinary ``ordinary'' Americans who never make the headlines and will never be interviewed -- are laying the foundation, not just for recovery from our present problems but for a better tomorrow for all our people. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1983.
Our country is a special place, because we Americans have always been sustained, through good times and bad, by a noble vision -- a vision not only of what the world around us is today but what we as a free people can make it be tomorrow. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1983.
This country was founded and built by people with great dreams and the courage to take great risks. - Ronald Reagan, January 26, 1983.
We preach no manifest destiny. But like Americans who began this country and brought forth this last, best hope of mankind, history has asked much of the Americans of our own time. Much we have already given; much more we must be prepared to give. - President Ronald Reagan, speech on the Soviet Attack on a Korean Civilian Airliner, September 5, 1983.
Americans are people of peace. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1984.
We have no territorial ambitions. We occupy no countries. We build no walls to lock people in. Americans build the future. And our vision of a better life for farmers, merchants, and working people, from the Americas to Asia, begins with a simple premise: The future is best decided by ballots, not bullets. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1984.
Our greatest resources and hope for the future are the minds and hearts of our people. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on Administration Policies, August 25, 1984.
It's clear that once people get a chance to show what they can do--well, America got well and got strong. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation, August 18, 1984.
Americans, are not given to looking backward. In this blessed land, there is always a better tomorrow. - Ronald Reagan, Second Inaugural Address, January 21, 1985.
As an older American, I remember a time when people of different race, creed, or ethnic origin in our land found hatred and prejudice installed in social custom and, yes, in law. There is no story more heartening in our history than the progress that we have made toward the "brotherhood of man" that God intended for us. Let us resolve there will be no turning back or hesitation on the road to an America rich in dignity and abundant with opportunity for all our citizens. - Ronald Reagan, Second Inaugural Address, January 21, 1985.
Yes, we Americans have our disagreements, sometimes noisy ones, almost always in public -- that's the nature of our open society--but no foreign power should mistake disagreement for disunity. Those who are tempted to do so should reflect on our national character and our history--a history littered with the wreckage of regimes who made the mistake of underestimating the vigor and will of the American people. - President Ronald Reagan, Remarks at the Annual Convention of the American Bar Association, July 8, 1985.
It's in the nature of Americans to hate war and its destructiveness. We would rather wage our struggle to rebuild and renew, not to tear down. We would rather fight against hunger, disease, and catastrophe. We would rather engage our adversaries in the battle of ideals and ideas for the future. These principles emerge from the innate openness and good character of our people and from our long struggle and sacrifice for our liberties and the liberties of others. Americans always yearn for peace. They have a passion for life. They carry in their hearts a deep capacity for reconciliation. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the 40th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, New York, October 24, 1985.
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." - President Ronald Reagan, Speech about the Challenger disaster, January 28, 1986.
We Americans make no secret of our belief in freedom. In fact, it’s something of a national pastime. - Ronald Reagan, speech at Moscow State University, May 31, 1988.
ANSWERS
They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong. 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, “A Time for Choosing” Speech, October 27, 1964.
APPEASEMENT
Every lesson of history tells us that appeasement does not lead to peace. It invites an aggressor to test the will of a nation unprepared to meet that test. And tragically, those who seemingly want peace the most, our young people, pay the heaviest price for our failure to maintain our strength. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Sept. 15, 1972.
ARMS CONTROL
We don't want an arms control process that sends hopes soaring only to end in dashed expectations. - Ronald Reagan, Remarks to the National Press Club on Arms Reduction, November 18, 1981.
There is no reason why people in any part of the world should have to live in permanent fear of war or its spectre. I believe the time has come for all nations to act in a responsible spirit that doesn't threaten other states. I believe the time is right to move forward on arms control and the resolution of critical regional disputes at the conference table. Nothing will have a higher priority for me and for the American people over the coming months and years. - Ronald Reagan, Remarks to the National Press Club on Arms Reduction, November 18, 1981.
Deep down, the Soviets must know it's in their interest as well as ours to prevent a wasteful arms race. And once they recognize our unshakable resolve to maintain adequate deterrence, they will have every reason to join us in the search for greater security and major arms reductions. When that moment comes--and I'm confident that it will--we will have taken an important step toward a more peaceful future for all the world's people. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1983.
The restoration of a credible deterrent and the search for real arms reductions and stability are two sides of the same coin -- a coin that is inscribed with the words ``peace'' and ``security.'' - President Ronald Reagan, Remarks at the Annual Convention of the American Legion in Seattle, Washington, August 23, 1983.
I want to make an unequivocal pledge to those gathered today in this world arena. The United States seeks and will accept any equitable, verifiable agreement that stabilizes forces at lower levels than currently exist. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the 38th Session of the U.N., September 26, 1983.
Peace cannot be served by pseudo arms control.... The time has come for the Soviet Union to show proof that it wants arms control in reality, not just in rhetoric. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the 38th Session of the U.N., September 26, 1983.
There is only one way safely and legitimately to reduce the cost of national security, and that is to reduce the need for it.... We seek the total elimination one day of nuclear weapons from the face of the Earth. - Ronald Reagan, Second Inaugural Address, January 21, 1985.
I have no higher priority than to achieve agreements which would strengthen America's security and that of our allies by establishing a more stable strategic balance at radically reduced levels of weaponry. And it is my hope that we can one day eliminate them altogether. - Ronald Reagan, Remarks, Statement on Soviet-U.S Arms Negotiations, January 15, 1986.
ASPIRATIONS
Those nations and states which have secured man's highest aspirations for freedom, opportunity and justice, have always been those willing to trust their people, confident that their skills and their talents are equal to any challenge. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Jan 5, 1974.
BILL OF RIGHTS
Mankind's best defense against tyranny and want is limited government--a government which empowers its people, not itself, and which respects the wit and bravery, the initiative, and the generosity of the people. For, above all, human rights are rights of individuals: rights of conscience, rights of choice, rights of association, rights of emigration, rights of self-directed action, and the right to own property. The concept of a nation of free men and women linked together voluntarily is the genius of the system our Founding Fathers established. - President Ronald Reagan, Proclamation 4885 - Bill of Rights Day, December 4, 1981.
BRAVERY & COURAGE
They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong. There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right. - President Ronald Reagan, a speech which he called "A Time for Choosing", October 27, 1964.
Things like faith, love of country, courage and dedication-they are all part of the inner strength of America. And sometimes, they do not become self-evident until there is a time of crisis. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Sept. 9, 1974.
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. - President Ronald Reagan, First Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981.
BUREAUCRACY & BUREAUCRATS
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. - President Ronald Reagan, a speech which he called "A Time for Choosing", October 27, 1964.
Too many people, especially in government, feel that the nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a government program. - President Ronald Reagan, May 10, 1972.
They were going to put seventeen unemployed people to work in a so-called training project clearing some park land. I vetoed the program because they were going to spend half the budget on seven administrators to see that the seventeen got to work on time. - Governor Ronald Reagan, to Students, April 12, 1973.
If a bureaucrat had been writing the 10 Commandments, a simple rock slab would not have been near enough room. Those simple rules would have read: "Thou Shalt Not, unless you feel strongly to the contrary, or for the following stated exceptions, see paragraphs 1-10 subsection #A. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, June 6, 1974.
BUSINESS & TRADE
The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would hire them away. - President Ronald Reagan, RNC speech, August 23, 1984.
For almost four decades, government in America has grown increasingly hostile to the business and industrial community. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Feb. 15, 1972.
Labor sets its own goals, often without regard to the inflationary and even destructive impact those goals may have on other Americans. Businessmen react by raising prices because they must meet the demands of labor - even if doing so means surrendering more and more of their markets to lower priced foreign competition. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Feb. 15, 1972.
Constructive trade, the two-way exchange of goods and services, is the most efficient and logical way for each nation and each area of the world to build a stable prosperity, a prosperity based not on aid, but on mutually beneficial economic contacts. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, May 22, 1974.
Private business and industry is the most over-regulated, overtaxed and under-appreciated part of America's society. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Oct. 15, 1974.
Small businessmen in America spend 130 million man hours a year just filling out government forms. That blizzard of paperwork adds $30 to 50 billion a year to the cost of doing business and it means higher prices on the products you buy. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Nov. 14, 1974.
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 benefitting 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. - President Ronald Reagan, September 29, 1981.
Too often, people forget a basic fact of life: All those good things we enjoy come from the ache in your backs and your willingness to shoulder great personal risks. Right now, another fact of life in America's heartland is that things haven't been very good down on the farm. You who produce the food and fiber essential to life itself are carrying tremendous burdens--sometimes impossible burdens. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on Agriculture and Grain Exports, October 15, 1982.
It's imperative that all of us work together to reduce the growing tide of protectionism and export subsidies overseas. If other countries can't understand an evenhanded approach is in everybody's best interest, if they're not willing to play by the rules of the game, then let there be no mistake: We must and we will counter with strong measures of our own. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on Agriculture and Grain Exports, October 15, 1982.
As the leader of the West and as a country that has become great and rich because of economic freedom, America must be an unrelenting advocate of free trade. As some nations are tempted to turn to protectionism, our strategy cannot be to follow them, but to lead the way toward freer trade. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1983.
The spirit of enterprise is sparked by the sunrise industries of high-tech and by small businesspeople with big ideas.... - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1984.
The lessons of history are clear. The costs of protectionism for one group would automatically be passed on to another. Inflation would be reignited, jobs would be destroyed, not saved, and foreign countries would retaliate against our exporters, like our farmers. And America doesn't need that kind of help. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on the Agricultural and Steel Industries, September 22, 1984.
Somewhere along the way these folks in Washington have forgotten that the economy is business. Business creates new products and new services. Business creates jobs. Business creates prosperity for our communities and our nation as a whole. - Ronald Reagan, speech in Washington D.C. Sept. 23, 1985.
Entrepreneurs share a faith in a bright future. They have a clear vision of where they are going and what they are doing, and they have a pressing need to succeed. If I didn’t know better, I would be tempered to say that “entrepreneur” is another word for America. - Ronald Reagan, Success magazine, 1986.
CAPITALISM
There was a student in North Carolina state who signed up for and then cancelled a course in history when he bought the assigned textbook, the title of which was Up Against the American
Myth. The first line of the textbook read, "Capitalism stinks; we can solve the social problems by doing away with capitalism and the institutions that support it." When the professor was asked if he intended to assign another text that defended capitalism, he looked blank and said he knew of no such text. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Jan. 9, 1972.
No one has yet found a way to repeal the law of supply and demand. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Nov. 17, 1972.
Millions of individuals making there own decisions in the marketplace will always allocate resources better than any centralized government planning process. - Ronald Reagan, speech in Washington D.C., September 27, 1983.
The explorers of the modern era are the entrepreneurs, men with vision, with the courage to take risks and faith enough to brave the unknown. - Ronald Reagan, speech at Moscow State University, May 31, 1988.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
The worst moment I've ever had as Governor was in regard to an execution early in my administration, the last one held in California. The Governor does have the right to commute a sentence to life imprisonment, and I felt on reviewing all of the evidence, that I couldn't do that. This case had been appealed all the way up to the United States Supreme Court. Every court, every legal process upheld the rightness of that death sentence, and I had to agree with them. But I think it is the worst moment any man has, because you can't help wonder in your mind. . . should you or shouldn't you do this, as the moment approaches. - Governor Ronald Reagan, to Students, March 8, 1973.
Whenever one speaks of capital punishment, there is a danger of being cast as a zealot, waving the bloody shirt. And I am fully aware that many citizens honestly oppose capital punishment on moral grounds or because of their own compassionate views. I respect their opinions. They are entitled to express them and to seek to convince others of the validity of their belief. But a majority of our citizens strongly believe that capital punishment is a deterrent to crime. And I cannot help but draw some degree of significance from the fact that during the time we have had an almost total moritorium on capital punishment, the rate of violent crime has escalated steadily. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Aug. 1, 1973.
CHARITY
We have a kind of generosity that is rather unusual in the whole world because from the beginning we’ve accepted the responsibility of voluntary giving for great causes. The more you transfer this to the state, the more you get to be I like so many of the older countries where people I say "its not my responsibility, there's somebody in government who is supposed to do that."
Well today, in this country, we give 21 and one-half billion dollars voluntary to charitable and educational institutions and so forth. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Interview, May 8, 1973.
COLD WAR
Will the average Soviet family be better off or even aware that the Soviet Union has imposed a government of its own choice on the people of Afghanistan? Is life better for the people of Cuba because the Cuban military dictate who shall govern the people of Angola?
It is often implied that such things have been made necessary because of territorial ambitions of the United States; that we have imperialistic designs, and thus constitute a threat to your own security and that of the newly emerging nations. Not only is there no evidence to support such a charge, there is solid evidence that the United States, when it could have dominated the world with no risk to itself, made no effort whatsoever to do so. - Ronald Reagan, letter to Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev, April, 1981.
The years ahead will be great ones for our country, for the cause of freedom and the spread of civilization. The West will not contain Communism, it will transcend Communism. We will not bother to denounce it, we'll dismiss it as a sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages are even now being written." - President Ronald Reagan, Notre Dame University, May 17, 1981.
This stretch of 37 years since World War II has been the result of our maintaining a balance of power between the United States and the Soviet Union and between the strategic nuclear capabilities of either side. As long as this balance has been maintained, both sides have been given an overwhelming incentive for peace.
In the 1970's, the United States altered that balance by, in effect, unilaterally restraining our own military defenses while the Soviet Union engaged in an unprecedented buildup of both its conventional and nuclear forces. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on Nuclear Weapons, April 17, 1982.
Let's not fool ourselves. The Soviet Union will not come to any conference table bearing gifts. Soviet negotiators will not make unilateral concessions. To achieve parity, we must make it plain that we have the will to achieve parity by our own effort. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on Nuclear Weapons, April 17, 1982.
Let us beware that while they [Soviet rulers] preach the supremacy of the state, declare its omnipotence over individual man, and predict its eventual domination over all the peoples of the earth, they are the focus of evil in the modern world.... I urge you to beware the temptation... to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of any evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong, good and evil. - President Ronald Reagan, Speech to the National Association of Evangelicals, March 8, 1983.
It must be absolutely clear to the Soviets that they would have no conceivable advantage in threatening or starting a nuclear war. In seeking to reduce American and Soviet nuclear arsenals, we must convince the Soviet Union that it is in our mutual interest to agree to significant, mutual arms reductions. And to do that, we cannot allow the current nuclear imbalance to continue. We must show the Soviets that we're determined to spend what it takes to deter war. Once they understand that, we have a real chance of successfully reaching arms reduction agreements. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on the Observance of Armed Forces Day, May 21, 1983.
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 those nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the University of South Carolina, Columbia, September 20, 1983.
The United States rejects as false and misleading the view of the world as divided between the empires of the East and West. We reject it on factual grounds. The United States does not head any bloc of subservient nations, nor do we desire to. What is called the West is a free alliance of governments, most of whom are democratic and all of whom greatly value their independence. What is called the East is an empire directed from the center which is Moscow. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the 38th Session of the U.N., September 26, 1983.
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, said during a microphone test, August 11, 1984.
Now, for decades, we and the Soviets have lived under the threat of mutual assured destruction; if either resorted to the use of nuclear weapons, the other could retaliate and destroy the one who had started it. Is there either logic or morality in believing that if one side threatens to kill tens of millions of our people, our only recourse is to threaten killing tens of millions of theirs?
I have approved a research program to find, if we can, a security shield that would destroy nuclear missiles before they reach their target. It wouldn't kill people, it would destroy weapons. It wouldn't militarize space, it would help demilitarize the arsenals of Earth. It would render nuclear weapons obsolete. - Ronald Reagan, Second Inaugural Address, January 21, 1985.
How is Moscow threatened if the capitals of other nations are protected? We do not ask that the Soviet leaders, whose country has suffered so much from war, to leave their people defenseless against foreign attack. Why then do they insist that we remain undefended? Who is threatened if Western research and Soviet research, that is itself well-advanced, should develop a non-nuclear system which would threaten not human beings but only ballistic missiles? Surely, the world will sleep more secure when these missiles have been rendered useless, militarily and politically; when the sword of Damocles that has hung over our planet for too many decades is lifted by Western and Russian scientists working to shield their citizens and one day shut down space as an avenue of weapons of mass destruction. If we're destined by history to compete, militarily, to keep the peace, then let us compete in systems that defend our societies rather than weapons which can destroy us both and much of God's creation along with us. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the 40th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, New York, October 24, 1985.
We do not threaten the Soviet people and never will. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation on the Upcoming Soviet-United States Summit Meeting in Geneva, November 14, 1985.
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! - President Ronald Reagan, Speech near the Berlin Wall, June 12, 1987.
COMMON SENSE
Government can be brought under control if enough people are willing to stand the gaff and take the heat, and fight for common sense solutions. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Oct. 15, 1974.
COMMUNICATION
Communications is not only somebody talking but somebody being willing to listen. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, June 10, 1973.
I've always believed that a lot of the trouble in the world would disappear if we were talking to each other instead of about each other. - Ronald Reagan, April 11, 1984.
COMMUNISM
The West won't contain Communism. It will transcend Communism. We will dismiss it as some bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages are even now being written. - President Ronald Reagan, address at Notre Dame University.
The years ahead will be great ones for our country, for the cause of freedom and the spread of civilization. The West will not contain Communism, it will transcend Communism. We will not bother to denounce it, we'll dismiss it as a sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages are even now being written." - President Ronald Reagan, Notre Dame University, May 17, 1981.
[One] of the simple, but overwhelming facts of our time is this: of all the millions of refugees we have seen in modern world, there flight is always away from, not toward, the communist world. - Ronald Reagan, speech to the British Parliament, June 8, 1982.
In an ironic sense, Karl Marx was right. We are witnessing today a great revolutionary crisis — a crisis where the demands of the economic order are colliding directly with those of the political order. But the crisis is happening not in the free, non-Marxist West, but in the home of Marxism-Leninism, the Soviet Union.... [Communism will be] left on the ash heap of history. - President Ronald Reagan, June 1982.
It is the Soviet Union that runs against the tide of history.... [It is] the march of freedom and democracy which will leave Marxism- Leninism on the ash heap of history as it has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people. - President Ronald Reagan, Speech to Britain's Parliament, 1982.
Many governments oppress their people and abuse human rights.... I have one question for those rulers: If communism is the wave of the future, why do you still need walls to keep people in, and armies of secret police to keep them quiet? - President Ronald Reagan, July 19, 1983.
Now, there are some--in Moscow and Havana--who don't want to let our Caribbean neighbors solve their problems peacefully. They seek to impose their alien form of totalitarianism with bullets instead of ballots. - President Ronald Reagan, Remarks at the Annual Convention of the American Legion in Seattle, Washington, August 23, 1983.
Our concern is justice. Has communism ever provided that? Our concern is poverty. Has a Communist economic system ever brought prosperity? - President Ronald Reagan, Remarks at the Annual Convention of the American Legion in Seattle, Washington, August 23, 1983.
The record shows that since the Soviets began their aid program to Africa in 1954, military aid has outpaced all other Soviet aid by 7 to 1. Then add more than 40,000 Soviet and surrogate military personnel stationed in Africa, and it's no wonder that Africa is rife with conflict and tension. - President Ronald Reagan, Remarks at the Annual Convention of the American Legion in Seattle, Washington, August 23, 1983.
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. - President Ronald Reagan, Remarks at Human Rights Day event, December 10, 1986.
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. - President Ronald Reagan, Remarks in Arlington, Virginia, September 25, 1987.
CONGRESS
Talk is cheap--except when Congress does it. The government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other. - Ronald Reagan.
The single, greatest failure of the Congress continues to be its inability to pass a responsible budget to help bring down deficits. By ``responsible,'' I don't mean a budget that raises taxes to accommodate higher spending; I mean a budget that reduces spending to match revenues. You, the people, should not be forced to subsidize their extravagance. They should force themselves to spend within your means. Handcuffing big spenders and stopping them from taxing more of your earnings will be our first order of business come January. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on the First Session of the 98th Congress, November 19, 1983.
Americans know an act of Congress can repeal vital military expenditures. They also know what an act of Congress can't repeal: the aggressive tendencies and intentions of our adversaries. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on Armed Forces Day, May 18, 1985.
Something Lucy [Ball] said last year applies to the way that I feel right now. Let's see if I can quote her accurately: ``To those of you who said such nice things about me tonight, I just wish you were all under oath.'' I wish you were all Members of Congress. - President Ronald Reagan, Remarks at the All-Star Tribute to Ronald "Dutch" Reagan in Burbank, California, December 1, 1985.
CONSERVATISM
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. - Ronald Reagan, “A Time for Choosing” Speech, October 27, 1964.
I think the so-called conservative is today, what was in the classic sense, the liberal. The classical liberal, during the Revolutionary time, was a man who wanted less power for the King and more power for the people. He wanted people to have more say in the running of their lives and he wanted protection for the God given right of the people. He did not believe those rights were dispensations granted by the King to the people, he believed that he was born with them. Well, that today is the conservative. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Interview, Sept. 15, 1973.
However, our task is far from over. Our friends in the other party will never forgive us for our success, and are doing everything in their power to rewrite history. Listening to the liberals, you'd think that the 1980's were the worst period since the Great Depression, filled with suffering and despair. I don't know about you, but I'm getting awfully tired of the whining voices from the White House these days. They're claiming there was a decade of greed and neglect, but you and I know better than that. We were there. - President Ronald Reagan, RNC Annual Gala, Feb. 3, 1994.
CONSTITUTION: U.S.
Our constitution is a document that protects the people from government. - Governor Ronald Reagan, to Students, Sept. 17, 1973.
Not too long ago, Senator Kennedy paid a tribute to former Governor and Ambassador Averell Harriman, who was celebrating a birthday in his nineties, and Teddy Kennedy said that Ambassador Harriman's age was only half as old as Ronald Reagan's ideas. And you know, he's absolutely right. The United States Constitution is almost 200 years old, and that's where I'm proud to get my ideas. - Ronald Reagan, Address Before a Joint Session of the Alabama State Legislature in Montgomery, March 15, 1982.
If our Constitution means anything it means that we, the Federal Government, are entrusted with preserving life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. - Ronald Reagan, press conference, Washington D.C. June 11, 1986.
Why is the Constitution of the United States so exceptional?... Just three words: We the people. In... other constitutions, the Government tells the people of those countries what they are allowed to do. In our Constitution, we the people tell the Government what it can do. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union address. January 27, 1987.
CREDIT
I have a little bronze plaque on my desk and I hope I can live by the inscription it bears - "You can accomplish much if you don't care who gets the credit." - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, June 28, 1972.
CRIME & PUNISHMENT
The crime problem has indeed become a matter of widespread concern, even among people of different philosophies. Today's hardliner on law and order is yesterday's liberal who was mugged last night. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Aug. 1, 1973.
When a law breaker can kill without facing the prospect of the ultimate penalty, when most convicted criminals know that they probably will not wind up in prison, we cannot say we have effective deterrents to even more criminal activity. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Aug. 1, 1973.
The problem of crime is not an abstraction to be debated in some academic tearoom. It is a daily threat to the lives and safety of our people. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Feb. 11, 1974.
Murder is murder, whether it is committed as an individual act or a protest against society. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, May 2, 1974.
No amount of rhetoric can change a crime into a social or political cause. Kidnapping is a violent crime and those who engage in this kind of terrorism, whatever their alleged motives, are not romantic revolutionaries; they are common, sordid, vicious criminals and should be treated accordingly. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, May 2, 1974.
When we say we want to solve the crime problem, what we really mean is that we want government to be able to guarantee every citizen that most of all freedoms; freedom from fear, freedom from the threat of muggers and freedom to be able to walk the streets. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Dec. 4, 1974.
The time has also come for major reform of our criminal justice statutes and acceleration of the drive against organized crime and drug trafficking. It's high time that we make our cities safe again. This administration hereby declares an all-out war on big-time organized crime and the drug racketeers who are poisoning our young people. - President Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1983.
CRISIS
You may be weary of me sounding the same alarms. You might think, well, we have heard all this before, but somehow we muddled through. Well, that is like the window-washer who fell from the Empire State Building. When he passed the 20th floor, he said, "so far, so good." - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Oct. 29, 1972.
We are the showcase of the future. And it is within our power to mold that future-this year and for decades to come. It can be as grand and as great as we make it. No crisis is beyond the capacity of our people to solve; no challenge too great. - Governor Ronald Reagan, January 5, 1974.
CUBA
Twenty-five years ago, during these early January days, you were celebrating what all of us hoped was the dawn of a new era of freedom. Most Cubans welcomed the prospects for democracy and liberty which the leaders of the Cuban revolution had promised....
But tragically, the promises made to you have not been kept. Since 1959 you've been called upon to make one sacrifice after another. And for what? Doing without has not brought you a more abundant life. It has not brought you peace. And most important, it has not won freedom for your people -- freedom to speak your opinions, to travel where and when you wish, to work in independent unions, and to openly proclaim your faith in God and to enjoy all these basic liberties without having to be afraid....
But your leaders tell you, ``Don't complain, don't expect improvement, just be ready for more sacrifice.'' - Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Cuban People on the 25th Anniversary of Their Revolution, January 5, 1984.
DEBT
We can leave our children with an unrepayable massive debt and a shattered economy, or we can leave them liberty in a land where every individual has the opportunity to be whatever God intended us to be. All it takes is a little common sense and recognition of our own ability. Together we can forge a new beginning for America. - Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation on the Economy, February 5, 1981.
If you’ve been wondering why you don’t seem as well off as you were a few years back, it’s because Government makes a profit on inflation. It gets an automatic tax increase without having to vote on it. We intend to stop that. - Ronald Reagan, speech in Washington D.C. July 27, 1981.
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. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to National Association of Realtors, March 28, 1982.
DEMOCRACY
We are a nation that has a government -- not the other way around. And that makes us special among the nations of the earth. - Ronald Reagan, inaugural address. January 20, 1981.
It is the Soviet Union that runs against the tide of history.... [It is] the march of freedom and democracy which will leave Marxism- Leninism on the ash heap of history as it has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people. - President Ronald Reagan, Speech to Britain's Parliament, 1982.
The tide of the future is a freedom tide, and our struggle for democracy cannot and will not be denied. This nation champions peace that enshrines liberty, democratic rights, and dignity for every individual. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1984.
Since the turn of the century, the number of democracies in the world has grown fourfold. Human freedom is on the march, and nowhere more so than our own hemisphere. - Ronald Reagan, Second Inaugural Address, January 21, 1985.
Our system--this way of life we call democracy and freedom--really works because of the dedicated Americans like that GI in Germany, who've always been willing to defend our way of life from foreign aggressors--from those who do not love freedom and seek to destroy it. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on Armed Forces Day, May 18, 1985.
Freedom and democracy are the best guarantors of peace. History has shown that democratic nations do not start wars. The rights of the individual and the rule of law are as fundamental to peace as arms control. A government which does not respect its citizens' rights and its international commitments to protect those rights is not likely to respect its other international undertakings. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation on the Upcoming Soviet-United States Summit Meeting in Geneva, November 14, 1985.
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. - President Ronald Reagan, Remarks at Human Rights Day event, December 10, 1986.
Democracy is less a system of government than it is a system to keep government limited, unintrusive: a system of constraints on power to keep politics and government secondary to the important things in life, the true sources of value found only in family and faith. - Ronald Reagan, speech at Moscow State University. May 31, 1988.
In America, our origins matter less than our destination, and that is what democracy is all about. - Ronald Reagan, August 17, 1992.
When you see all that rhetorical smoke billowing up from the Democrats, well ladies and gentleman, I'd follow the example of their nominee [Bill Clinton]; don't inhale. - President Ronald Reagan, Republican National Convention, 1992.
This fellow they've nominated [Bill Clinton] 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! - President Ronald Reagan, Republican National Convention, 1992.
DESTINY
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. - Ronald Reagan, “A Time for Choosing” Speech, October 27, 1964.
DETERRENCE
History teaches us that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap. - Ronald Reagan.
The most fundamental paradox is that if we're never to use force, we must be prepared to use it and to use it successfully. We Americans don't want war and we don't start fights. We don't maintain a strong military force to conquer or coerce others. The purpose of our military is simple and straightforward: We want to prevent war by deterring others from the aggression that causes war. If our efforts are successful, we will have peace and never be forced into battle. There will never be a need to fire a single shot. That's the paradox of deterrence. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on the Observance of Armed Forces Day, May 21, 1983.
The restoration of a credible deterrent and the search for real arms reductions and stability are two sides of the same coin--a coin that is inscribed with the words ``peace'' and ``security.'' - President Ronald Reagan, Remarks at the Annual Convention of the American Legion in Seattle, Washington, August 23, 1983.
DICTATORSHIP
It would be cultural condescension, or worse, to say that any people prefer dictatorship to democracy. Who would voluntarily choose not to have the right to vote; decide to purchase government propaganda handouts instead of independent newspapers; prefer government - to worker - controlled unions; opt for land to be owned by the state instead of those who till it; want government repression of religious liberty, a single political party instead of a free choice, a rigid cultural orthodoxy instead of democratic tolerance and diversity? - Ronald Reagan, speech to the British Parliament, June 8, 1982.
All through history, it has been the dictatorships and the tyrannies that have surrendered first to the cult of militarism and the pursuit of war. Countries based on the consent of the governed, countries that recognize the unalienable rights of the individual, do not make war on each other. - Ronald Reagan, speech to the United Nations General Assembly, September 22, 1986.
DREAMS
There is no question that we have failed to live up to the dreams of the founding fathers many times and in many places. Sometimes we do better than others. But all in all, the one thing that we must be on guard against is thinking that because of this, the system has failed. The system has not failed. Some human beings have failed the system. - Governor Ronald Reagan, to Students, June 21, 1973.
Your dreams, your hopes, your goals are going to be the dreams, the hopes, and the goals of this administration, so help me God. - Ronald Reagan, First Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981.
We have every right to dream heroic dreams. Those who say that we are in a time when there are no heroes just don't know where to look. You can see heroes every day going in and out of factory gates. Others, a handful in number, produce enough food to feed all of us and then the world beyond. You meet heroes across a counter — and they are on both sides of that counter. There are entrepreneurs with faith in themselves and faith in an idea who create new jobs, new wealth and opportunity. They are individuals and families whose taxes support the Government and whose voluntary gifts support church, charity, culture, art, and education. Their patriotism is quiet but deep. Their values sustain our national life. - Ronald Reagan, First Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981.
You have the right to dream great dreams. You have the right to seek a better world for your people. And all of us have the responsibility to work for that better world. And as caring, peaceful peoples, think what a powerful force for good we could be. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the 38th Session of the U.N., September 26, 1983.
We believed then and now there are no limits to growth and human progress when men and women are free to follow their dreams. - Ronald Reagan, Second Inaugural Address, January 21, 1985.
DUTY
They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong. There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right. Winston Churchill said that, "the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits -- not animals." And he said, "There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty." - President Ronald Reagan, a speech which he called "A Time for Choosing", October 27, 1964.
The challenge is the task of defending freedom, and the call they've answered is summarized in three words: duty, honor, country. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on Armed Forces Day, May 18, 1985.
ECONOMICS
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. - Ronald Reagan, “A Time for Choosing” Speech, October 27, 1964.
It is old-fashioned, even reactionary to remind people that free enterprise has done more to
reduce poverty than all the government programs dreamed up by democracy. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, May 4, 1972.
Do you remember back in the days when you thought that nothing could replace the dollar. Today it practically has! - Ronald Reagan, August 9, 1973.
The tragedy is that our inflation problems are not the fault of the free market system. We stumbled into inflation because we strayed too far away from the free market concept. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Oct. 15, 1974.
The truth is: there is one reason for inflation in America and that is simply that government for too long has been spending too much money. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Oct. 15, 1974.
Unless we bring inflation under control, we can never expect to deal with any of the other problems we face as a nation. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Oct. 15, 1974.
Government does not produce revenue; it consumes it. - Ronald Reagan, November 14, 1974.
Inflation is like radioactivity. It is cumulative. It piles up until one day you find it out of control. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Nov. 14, 1974.
What some of our people seem to have forgotten is the fact that America's prosperity was not a gift from government or anyone else. Free Enterprise, not government, is the source from which our blessings flow. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Dec. 14, 1974.
A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his. - President Ronald Reagan, during the 1980 presidential campaign.
Gentlemen, I hate inflation, I hate taxes and I hate the Soviets. Do something about it. - President Ronald Reagan, Statement to his staff at the end of his first Cabinet meeting. 1980.
To paraphrase Winston Churchill, I did not take the oath I’ve just taken, with the intention of presiding over the dissolution of the world’s strongest economy. - Ronald Reagan, inaugural address, January 20, 1981.
The business of our nation goes forward. These United States are confronted with an economic affliction of great proportions. We suffer from the longest and one of the worst sustained inflations in our national history. It distorts our economic decisions, penalizes thrift, and crushes the struggling young and the fixed-income elderly alike. It threatens to shatter the lives of millions of our people. - Ronald Reagan, First Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981.
Over the years we've let negative economic forces run out of control. We stalled the judgment day, but we no longer have that luxury. We're out of time. - Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation on the Economy, February 5, 1981.
I'm speaking to you tonight to give you a report on the state of our Nation's economy. I regret to say that we're in the worst economic mess since the Great Depression.
A few days ago I was presented with a report I'd asked for, a comprehensive audit, if you will, of our economic condition. You won't like it. I didn't like it. But we have to face the truth and then go to work to turn things around. And make no mistake about it, we can turn them around. - Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation on the Economy, February 5, 1981.
Government has only two ways of getting money other than raising taxes. It can go into the money market and borrow, competing with its own citizens and driving up interest rates, which it has done, or it can print money, and it's done that. Both methods are inflationary. - Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation on the Economy, February 5, 1981.
Our aim is to increase our national wealth so all will have more, not just redistribute what we already have, which is just a sharing of scarcity. We can begin to reward hard work and risk-taking by forcing this Government to live within its means. - Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation on the Economy, February 5, 1981.
We will return government to the governed, and we will not retreat from our program to give this economy back to the people who pay our bills and yearn to save for their future again. - Ronald Reagan, Address Before a Joint Session of the Alabama State Legislature in Montgomery, March 15, 1982.
My fellow Americans: Let's talk about the budget, the one subject that most directly affects your pocketbooks. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on the Federal Budget, May 22, 1982.
Saving is one of the best ways people can help themselves and our country. As the pool of savings expands, interest rates come down and billions of dollars are made available for new investments, mortgages, and jobs. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on the Federal Budget, May 22, 1982.
Some economic indicators are down; others are up. But the dark cloud of unemployment hangs over the lives of 11 million of our friends, neighbors, and family. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation on the Economy, October 13, 1982.
The pounding economic hangover America's suffering from didn't come about overnight. And there's no single instant cure. In recent weeks, a lot of people have been playing what I call the ``blame game.'' The accusing finger has been pointed in every direction of the compass, and a lot of time and hot air have been spent looking for scapegoats. Well, there's plenty of blame to go around. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation on the Economy, October 13, 1982.
Inflation and the high interest rates it leads to are the real culprits. They create the economic climate that leads to unemployment. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation on the Economy, October 13, 1982.
We've had eight recessions since World War II. At the bottom of it all is inflation, government caused inflation. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation on the Economy, October 13, 1982.
The American dollar, beaten down and distrusted in the late 1970's, is showing new strength. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation on the Economy, October 13, 1982.
That's the one big difference between the recovery America is headed for today and the shaky, temporary recoveries of the recent past. This one is built to last. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation on the Economy, October 13, 1982.
A strong American economy is essential to the well-being and security of our friends and allies. The restoration of a strong, healthy American economy has been and remains one of the central pillars of our foreign policy. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1983.
We're witnessing an upsurge of productivity and impressive evidence that American industry will once again become competitive in markets at home and abroad, ensuring more jobs and better incomes for the Nation's work force. But our confidence must also be tempered by realism and patience. Quick fixes and artificial stimulants repeatedly applied over decades are what brought us the inflationary disorders that we've now paid such a heavy price to cure. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1983.
As we gather here tonight, the state of our Union is strong, but our economy is troubled. For too many of our fellow citizens -- farmers, steel and auto workers, lumbermen, black teenagers, working mothers -- this is a painful period. We must all do everything in our power to bring their ordeal to an end. It has fallen to us, in our time, to undo damage that was a long time in the making, and to begin the hard but necessary task of building a better future for ourselves and our children. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1983.
People everywhere hunger for peace and a better life. The tide of the future is a freedom tide, and our struggle for democracy cannot and will not be denied. This nation champions peace that enshrines liberty, democratic rights, and dignity for every individual. America's new strength, confidence, and purpose are carrying hope and opportunity far from our shores. A world economic recovery is underway. It began here. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1984.
In 1984 we face an historic choice. Will we heed the pessimists' agenda of higher taxes, more bureaucracy, and a bigger welfare state leading us right back to runaway inflation and economic decay, or will we continue on our new road toward a true opportunity society of economic growth, more jobs, lower tax rates, and rising take-home pay? - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation, August 18, 1984.
The time has come for a new American emancipation—a great national drive to tear down economic barriers and liberate the spirit of enterprise in the most distressed areas of our country. My friends, together we can do this, and do it we must, so help me God.
From new freedom will spring new opportunities for growth, a more productive, fulfilled and united people, and a stronger America — an America that will lead the technological revolution, and also open its mind and heart and soul to the treasures of literature, music, and poetry, and the values of faith, courage, and love. - Ronald Reagan, Second Inaugural Address, January 21, 1985.
We need only open our eyes to the economic evidence all around us. Nations that deny their people opportunity--in Eastern Europe, Indochina, southern Africa, and Latin America--without exception, are dropping further behind in the race for the future. But where we see enlightened leaders who understand that economic freedom and personal incentive are key to development, we see economies striding forward. Singapore, Taiwan, and South Korea, India, Botswana, and China--these are among the current and emerging success stories because they have the courage to give economic incentives a chance. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the 40th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, New York, October 24, 1985.
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, 1986.
A friend of mine was asked to a costume ball a short time ago. He slapped some egg on his face and went as a liberal economist. - President Ronald Reagan, February 11, 1988.
EDUCATION
Your teachers will hate me for this but my favorite subject in college was football. Today, I am fascinated with history. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Students, March 8, 1973.
What I support is an idea of not only a tax credit for part of your tuition, but a tax credit up to a certain limit for a contribution to those schools which are privately supported. For example, you could compute your income tax and if you owed $1,000 you could take $100 and instead of sending it to the government you could send it to the school of your choice. - Governor Ronald Reagan, to Students, April 12, 1973.
I believe in local control of education and the legislature has mandated too many programs on local education. In order to get money, the legislature has said to each school district, "you have to spend every dollar exactly as we tell you." This in itself is backward. - Governor Ronald Reagan, to Students, April 12, 1973.
The very existence of the independent college and university helps to assure and safeguard academic freedom for both students and faculty. This competition, the fact that you are still in business, gives the educational consumer (the student), a greater variety of choice, not only to meet his academic goals, but also to nurture and provide for the spiritual experience that is part of any complete educational program. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, April 30, 1973.
If we accept the philosophy that everything is the government's obligation, then I can see all private universities and colleges disappearing and we would have a state wide and nation wide system of public educational institutions. Well, they had that in Germany when Hitler was alive, and when the government said "burn the books," the professors burned the books. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Interview, May 8,1973.
In 1983 we seek four major education goals: a quality education initiative to encourage a substantial upgrading of math and science instruction through block grants to the States; establishment of education savings accounts that will give middle- and lower-income families an incentive to save for their children's college education and, at the same time, encourage a real increase in savings for economic growth; passage of tuition tax credits for parents who want to send their children to private or religiously affiliated schools; a constitutional amendment to permit voluntary school prayer. God should never have been expelled from America's classrooms in the first place. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1983.
We Americans are still the technological leaders in most fields. We must keep that edge, and to do so we need to begin renewing the basics--starting with our educational system. While we grew complacent, others have acted. Japan, with a population only about half the size of ours, graduates from its universities more engineers than we do. If a child doesn't receive adequate math and science teaching by the age of 16, he or she has lost the chance to be a scientist or an engineer. We must join together--parents, teachers, grassroots groups, organized labor, and the business community--to revitalize American education by setting a standard of excellence. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1983.
Families stand at the center of our society. And every family has a personal stake in promoting excellence in education. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1984.
If Soviet youth could attend American schools and universities, they could learn firsthand what spirit of freedom rules our land and that we do not wish the Soviet people any harm. If American youth could do likewise, they could talk about their interests and values and hopes for the future with their Soviet friends. They would get firsthand knowledge of life in the U.S.S.R., but most important, they would learn that we're all God's children with much in common. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation on the Upcoming Soviet-United States Summit Meeting in Geneva, November 14, 1985.
ELECTIONS
It is a homecoming for me and I could be very nostalgic. Of course when I lived here before, I was a Democrat and my whole family were Democrats. As a matter of fact, I had an uncle who lived here in Chicago who won a medal once for never having missed an election for 15 years. . . and he had been dead for fourteen. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, August 9, 1973.
If you have someone who is going to put his hand in the cookie jar, he's going to do that whether there's a limit on campaign contribtions or not. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Interview, Sept. 15, 1973.
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-4-year ceremony we accept as normal is nothing less than a miracle. - Ronald Reagan, First Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981.
ENVIRONMENT
We do not have to choose between the environment and jobs. We can set a common sense course between those who would cover the whole country with concrete in the name of progress and those who think you should not build a house unless it looks like a bird' s nest or a rabbit hole. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, April 27, 1973.
One of the great freedoms in this country that was unknown in most places in the world was and is the right of ownership of land. Most of the land throughout the world belonged to a royal family and could be given as a dispensation; but in this country anyone can own the place he lives in, a man's home can be his castle, this is his and he cannot be invaded without due process of law and so forth. Now, I can see that there are people so imbued with the desire to protect the environment that they would restrict and take away that right of individual ownership. What good does it do for you to hold the deed to your property if government can tell you everything you can do with that property? I think we have to be on guard against that. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Students, Sept. 17, 1973.
The ultimate answer to air pollution is through technology. And that answer is far more likely to come from the engineers in the factories, not from the economists in Washington. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Nov. 12, 1973.
But it seems no matter how much we do, there is still a very active fringe element in the environmental movement that never seems to be satisfied. Orderly progress in solving this very complex problem, in a way that does not paralyze the economy, is not enough. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Nov. 12, 1973.
ERROR
Now what should happen when you make a mistake is this: you takes your knocks, you learn your lessons and then you move on. That’s the healthiest way to deal with a problem. - Ronald Reagan, address to the nation, March 4, 1987.
FAMILY
Certainly one of the greatest blessings for people everywhere is the family itself.... It's in the family where we learn to think for ourselves, care for others, and acquire the values of self reliance, integrity, responsibility, and compassion. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on the American Family, December 3, 1983.
Families stand at the center of society, so building our future must begin by preserving family values. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on the American Family, December 3, 1983.
How can families survive when big government's powers to tax, inflate, and regulate absorb their wealth, usurp their rights, and crush their spirit? - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on the American Family, December 3, 1983.
If we strengthen families, we'll help reduce poverty and the whole range of other social problems. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on the American Family, December 3, 1983.
FORCE
There is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. - President Ronald Reagan, Normandy, France, June 6, 1984.
FOREIGN POLICY
We are for aiding our allies by sharing our material blessings with nations which share our fundamental beliefs, but we are against doling out money government to government, creating bureaucracy, if not socialism, all over the world. - Ronald Reagan, “A Time for Choosing” Speech, October 27, 1964.
Reducing America to the status of a second class nation, unable to make its voice heard in the councils of the world will surely be the prelude to another generation of Americans dying needlessly because of our mistakes. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Sept. 15, 1972.
The Soviet Union has not changed since Stalin's time. It has one course and one course only. It is dedicated to the belief that it is going to take over the world. Moreover, the Soviets have been winning everywhere for twenty-five years because of a U.S. foreign policy bordering an appeasement. Washington has seriously weakened U.S. defenses, and what is needed is a rapid build-up in all types of arms. Tune out those cynics, pacifists, and appeasers who tell us the army and navy of this country are nothing but extensions of some malevolent military industrial complex. There is only one military-industrial complex whose operations should concern us, and it is not located in Arlington, Virginia, but in Moscow. - Ronald Reagan, campaign speech, 1980.
The message to the Libyans was brought on by the Libyans. We didn't go there to shoot down a couple of Libyan planes. They came out and fired on ours when we were holding maneuvers, and which everyone had been notified, all of our allies. All of the countries there in the area had been notified that we were going to hold those maneuvers, which we do every year in that same place. - Ronald Reagan, Remarks on Board the U.S.S. Constellation, August 20, 1981.
Our foreign policy must be rooted in realism, not naivete or self-delusion. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 26, 1982.
Our foreign policy is a policy of strength, fairness, and balance. By restoring America's military credibility, by pursuing peace at the negotiating table wherever both sides are willing to sit down in good faith, and by regaining the respect of America's allies and adversaries alike, we have strengthened our country's position as a force for peace and progress in the world. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 26, 1982.
We Americans covet no foreign territory, and we have no intention of becoming policeman to the world. But as the most powerful country in the West, we have a responsibility to help our friends keep the peace. And we should be proud of our achievements and especially proud of the fine men and women of our Armed Forces who undertake these tough yet vital tasks. - President Ronald Reagan, Remarks at the Annual Convention of the American Legion in Seattle, Washington, August 23, 1983.
We know it will be hard to make a nation that rules its own people through force to cease using force against the rest of the world. But we must try. - President Ronald Reagan, speech on the Soviet Attack on a Korean Civilian Airliner, September 5, 1983.
The goal of United States policy remains clear and consistent. We seek the removal of Soviet military forces so that the Afghan people can live freely in their own country and are able to choose their own way of life and government. - President Ronald Reagan, speech proclaiming Afghanistan Day, March 20, 1984.
Our policy is simple: We are not going to betray our friends, reward the enemies of freedom, or permit fear and retreat to become American policies, especially in this hemisphere. None of the four wars in my lifetime came about because we were too strong. It is weakness--it is weakness that invites adventurous adversaries to make mistaken judgments. - Ronald Reagan, speech at the Republican National Convention, August 23, 1984.
All Americans are united on the goal of freedom for Afghanistan. I ask the American people, at the time when we are blessed with prosperity and security, to remember the Afghan struggle against tyranny and the rule of government-by-terror. We stand in admiration of the indomitable courage of the Afghan people who are an inspiration to all freedom-loving nations around the globe. - President Ronald Reagan, speech, Afghanistan Day, March 21, 1985.
It was leadership here at home that gave us strong American influence abroad, and the collapse of imperial Communism. Great nations have responsibilities to lead, and we should always be cautious of those who would lower our profile, because they might just wind up lowering our flag. - President Ronald Reagan, RNC Annual Gala, Feb. 3, 1994.
The Democrats may remember their lines, but how quickly they forget the lessons of the past. I have witnessed five major wars in my lifetime, and I know how swiftly storm clouds can gather on a peaceful horizon. The next time a Saddam Hussein takes over Kuwait, or North Korea brandishes a nuclear weapon, will we be ready to respond? In the end, it all comes down to leadership, and that is what this country is looking for now. - President Ronald Reagan, Republican National Committee Annual Gala, Feb. 3, 1994.
FREEDOM
In a phase of this struggle not widely known, some of us came toe to toe with this enemy this evil force in our own community in Hollywood, and make no mistake about it, this is an evil force. Don't be deceived because you are not hearing the sound of gunfire, because even so you are fighting for your lives. And you're fighting against the best organized and the most capable enemy of freedom and of right and decency that has ever been abroad in the world. - President Ronald Reagan, commencement address at Williams Woods College, June 1952.
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. Plutarch warned, "The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits." - Ronald Reagan, “A Time for Choosing” Speech, October 27, 1964.
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. - Ronald Reagan, “A Time for Choosing” Speech, October 27, 1964.
It's time we asked ourselves if we still know the freedoms intended for us by the Founding Fathers. - Ronald Reagan, “A Time for Choosing” Speech, October 27, 1964.
Freedom is indivisible - there is no "s" on the end of it. You can erode freedom, diminish it, but you cannot divide it and choose to keep "some freedoms" while giving up others. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, May 4, 1972.
America cannot survive in the 1970's if our peopIe have only a half-hearted commitment to freedom. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Sept. 30, 1972.
History makes it plain that unless restrained, government proliferates to a point where its cost bankrupts the people at the same time it robs them of their freedom. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Sept. 7, 1973.
With freed'om goes responsibility, a responsibility that can only be met by the individual himself. This is an eternal truth as valid today as it was in 1791 when Edmund Burke said, "Men are qualified for civil liberty in the exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their appetites. . ." - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, May 2, 1974.
It is time we realized that profit, property and freedom are inseparable. You can not have any one of them without the others. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Oct. 15, 1974.
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. - President Ronald Reagan, First Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981.
The Berlin Wall is a dramatic example of the desperate and cruel extremes to which totalitarian regimes will go to deny their subjects contact with other Europeans. From the Baltic Sea to Southeastern Europe, a murderous barrier of minefields and barbed wire, manned by guards who shoot to kill, stands as a monument to the inhumanity of those who would make the individual the servant of the state.
All who treasure freedom and human dignity should never accept nor take for granted this lethal barrier to freedom that stands today in the heart of Europe. - President Ronald Reagan, Statement on the Twentieth Anniversary of the Berlin Wall, August 13, 1981.
The freedom we enjoy today has not always existed and carries no guarantees. In our search for an everlasting peace, let all of us resolve to remain so sure of our strength that the victory for mankind we won here is never threatened. - President Ronald Reagan, Remarks at the Bicentennial Observance of the Battle of Yorktown in Virginia, October 19, 1981.
Each generation before us has struggled and sacrificed for freedom. Can we do any less? - President Ronald Reagan, Remarks at the Bicentennial Observance of the Battle of Yorktown in Virginia, October 19, 1981.
While we express our admiration for those who fight for the freedom we all cherish, we must also express our deep sympathy for those innocent victims of Soviet imperialism who, because of the love of freedom of their countrymen, have been forced to flee for their lives. - President Ronald Reagan, Statement on the Situation in Afghanistan, December 27, 1981.
It is up to us... to work together for progress and humanity so that our grandchildren, when they look back at us, can truly say that we not only preserved the flame of freedom, but cast its warmth and light further than those who came before us. - Ronald Reagan, 1982.
We intend to keep the peace. We will also keep our freedom. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 26, 1982.
One of the oldest truths in the world is that nothing worth having is cheap. And many times, the greater the good, the higher its cost. Keeping America free has cost us dearly over the centuries. Since 1776 we as a nation have lost thousands of lives and suffered thousands of injuries to guarantee our freedom. Preserving the peace also requires the daily toil of millions of men and women who, without fanfare and glory, serve to protect our freedom and security. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on Armed Forces Day, May 15, 1982.
Our national determination to defend freedom at the borders where it's threatened is fully matched by the quality and spirit of the more than 2 million soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines who proudly wear the American uniform. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on Armed Forces Day, May 15, 1982.
Where peace and freedom are at stake, we can't afford to gamble. - Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on the 1984 Budget, January 29, 1983.
That's right, there's a democratic revolution going on in this world. It may not grab the headlines, but it's there, and it's growing. The tide of history is with the forces of freedom--and so are we. - President Ronald Reagan, Remarks at the Annual Convention of the American Legion in Seattle, Washington, August 23, 1983.
The United States, today as in the past, is a champion of freedom and self-determination for all people. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the 38th Session of the U.N., September 26, 1983.
Only when people are given a personal stake in deciding their own destiny, benefiting from their own risks, do they create societies that are prosperous, progressive, and free. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1984.
We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we may always be free. - President Ronald Reagan, Normandy, France, June 6, 1984.
America must remain freedom's staunchest friend, for freedom is our best ally and it is the world's only hope to conquer poverty and preserve peace. Every blow we inflict against poverty will be a blow against its dark allies of oppression and war. Every victory for human freedom will be a victory for world peace. - President Ronald Reagan, Second Inaugural Address, January 21, 1985.
From new freedom will spring new opportunities for growth, a more productive, fulfilled and united people, and a stronger America — an America that will lead the technological revolution, and also open its mind and heart and soul to the treasures of literature, music, and poetry, and the values of faith, courage, and love - President Ronald Reagan, Second Inaugural Address, January 21, 1985.
History has shown that peace does not come, nor will our freedom be preserved, by good will alone. There are those in the world who scorn our vision of human dignity and freedom. - President Ronald Reagan, Second Inaugural Address, January 21, 1985.
By 1980, we knew it was time to renew our faith, to strive with all our strength toward the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with an orderly society. - President Ronald Reagan, Second Inaugural Address, January 21, 1985.
What kind of people will we be 40 years from today? May we answer: free people, worthy of freedom and firm in the conviction that freedom is not the sole prerogative of a chosen few, but the universal right of all God's children. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the 40th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, New York, October 24, 1985.
Only when the human spirit can worship, create, and build, only when people are given a personal stake in determining their own destiny and benefiting from their own risks, do societies become prosperous, progressive, dynamic, and free. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the 40th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, New York, October 24, 1985.
Freedom and democracy are the best guarantors of peace. History has shown that democratic nations do not start wars. The rights of the individual and the rule of law are as fundamental to peace as arms control. A government which does not respect its citizens' rights and its international commitments to protect those rights is not likely to respect its other international undertakings. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation on the Upcoming Soviet-United States Summit Meeting in Geneva, November 14, 1985.
In this storm-tossed world of terrorists and totalitarians, America must always champion freedom, for freedom is the one tide that will lead us to the safe and open harbor of peace. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1986.
Peace follows in freedom’s path and conflicts erupt when the will of the people is denied. - Ronald Reagan, state of the union address. February 2, 1986.
We owe a great debt to those on freedom's first line of defense.... and all the members of freedom's honor guard. And we say thank you to you. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on Armed Forces Day, May 17, 1986.
Our country will always remain the beacon of hope and freedom to all oppressed peoples. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on Terrorism, May 31, 1986.
Progress is not foreordained. The Key is freedom--freedom of thought, freedom of information, freedom of communication. - Ronald Reagan, speech at Moscow State University. May 31, 1988.
FUTURE
If you want to know which way to go in the future, you have to know which path you took in the past and where you stepped in a gopher hole along the way. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Oct. 15, 1974.
What I take from the past is inspiration for the future, and what we accomplished during our years at the White House must never be lost amid the rhetoric of political revisionists. - President Ronald Reagan, Republican National Committee Annual Gala, Feb. 3, 1994.
Now, as most of you know, I'm not one for looking back. I figure there will be plenty of time for that when I get old. But rather, what I take from the past is inspiration for the future, and what we accomplished during our years at the White House must never be lost amid the rhetoric of political revisionists. - President Ronald Reagan, Republican National Committee Annual Gala, Feb. 3, 1994.
GOVERNMENT
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. - President Ronald Reagan, October 27, 1964.
When an individual or a business has a lean year, they have to prune expenses and work for better days. When government has a deficit, it expects to solve that deficit by handing you a higher tax bill... - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Aug. 6, 1973.
Americans have had their night on the town of social tinkering and social experimentation. They are now suffering the morning after, and they are hungry for some good old ham and eggs fiscal common sense. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Aug. 9, 1973.
When an individual or a business has a lean year, they have to prune expenses and work for better days. When government has a deficit, it expects to solve that deficit by handing you a higher tax bill... - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Aug. 6, 1973.
When a business or an individual spends more than it makes, it goes bankrupt. When goverment does, it sends you - the taxpayer - the bill. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Oct. 15, 1974.
Cures were developed for which there were no known diseases. - President Ronald Reagan, Commenting on Congress and the federal budget, 1981.
All of us need to be reminded that the Federal Government did not create the States; the States created the Federal Government. - Ronald Reagan, First Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981.
But great as our tax burden is, it has not kept pace with public spending. For decades, we have piled deficit upon deficit, mortgaging our future and our children's future for the temporary convenience of the present. To continue this long trend is to guarantee tremendous social, cultural, political, and economic upheavals. - Ronald Reagan, First Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981.
The size of the federal budget is not an appropriate barometer of social conscience or charitable concern. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the National Alliance of Business, October 5, 1981.
I've said before, and let me say again, many of the spending proposals are motivated by sincere compassion, compassion we all feel. But pretty soon, if we aren't careful, we find ourselves inventing miracle cures for which there are no known diseases. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on the Federal Budget, May 22, 1982.
Our Federal Government has been living beyond its means for more than a generation. One of the wisest of our Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson, warned that the public debt is ``the greatest of dangers to be feared.” He believed that is was wrong for one generation to forever burden the generations yet to come, and for the first 150 years of our history, our leaders heeded Jefferson's warning.
But not lately. In our lifetimes we've seen government spending rage out of control. We've only had one balanced budget in the last 22 years. So, now we're staggering under a trillion-dollar debt. This year, before government can spend one dime to feed the hungry, care for the sick, or protect our freedom, it must plan to spend $110 billion just to pay interest on that debt. And still the big spenders wonder why the American people want what a stubborn minority in the House of Representatives denied them just 12 days ago: a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation on the Economy, October 13, 1982.
The deficit problem is a clear and present danger to the basic health of our Republic. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1983.
The Federal budget is both a symptom and a cause of our economic problems. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1983.
Let's be clear about where the deficit problem comes from. Contrary to the drumbeat we've been hearing for the last few months, the deficits we face are not rooted in defense spending. Taken as a percentage of the gross national product, our defense spending happens to be only about four fifths of what it was in 1970. Nor is the deficit, as some would have it, rooted in tax cuts. Even with our tax cuts, taxes as a fraction of gross national product remain about the same as they were in 1970. The fact is, our deficits come from the uncontrolled growth of the budget for domestic spending. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1983.
We must act now to protect future generations from Government's desire to spend its citizens' money and tax them into servitude when the bills come due. Let us make it unconstitutional for the Federal Government to spend more than the Federal Government takes in. - Ronald Reagan, Second Inaugural Address, January 21, 1985.
It’s time we reduced the Federal Budget and left the family budget alone. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, February 2, 1986.
We are a nation that has a government — not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the Earth. Our Government has no power except that granted it by the people. It is time to check and reverse the growth of government which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed. - Ronald Reagan, First Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981.
Government has an important role in helping develop a country's economic foundation. But the critical test is whether government is genuinely working to liberate individuals by creating incentives to work, save, invest, and succeed. - President Ronald Reagan, October 30, 1981.
To be more responsive to the people, we must have enough government to carry out all of government's legitimate responsibilities, but not one bit more. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Sept. 7, 1973.
For too many years, government has been growing in size and power with no regard for the economic consequences. And government loves it. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Oct. 15, 1974.
Our citizens feel they've lost control of even the most basic decisions made about the essential services of government, such as schools, welfare, roads, and even garbage collection. And they're right. A maze of interlocking jurisdictions and levels of government confronts average citizens in trying to solve even the simplest of problems. They don't know where to turn for answers, who to hold accountable, who to praise, who to blame, who to vote for or against. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 26, 1982.
Tragically, too many in Washington have been asking us to swallow a whopper: namely, that bigger government is the greatest force for fairness and progress. But this so-called solution has given most of us a bad case of financial indigestion. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on the American Family, December 3, 1983.
Government growing beyond our consent had become a lumbering giant, slamming shut the gates of opportunity, threatening to crush the very roots of our freedom. What brought America back? The American people brought us back — with quiet courage and common sense; with undying faith that in this nation under God the future will be ours, for the future belongs to the free. - President Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, February 4, 1986.
The more government we can keep at local levels in local hands, the better off we are and the more freedom we will have. - Governor Ronald Reagan, to Students, April 12, 1973.
All of us need to be reminded that the Federal Government did not create the States; the States created the Federal Government. - Ronald Reagan, First Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981.
The men and boys who fought on this field somehow understood that government must be close to people and responsive to them; that if all men are free to prosper, all will benefit.
Today in our country those concepts are threatened by government's bloated size and the distortion of its true functions. Our people are struggling under a punishing tax burden many times heavier than that which ignited our first rebellion. Regulations that inhibit our growth and prosperity would be incomprehensible to the colonists who revolted because of the Stamp Act. - President Ronald Reagan, Remarks at the Bicentennial Observance of the Battle of Yorktown in Virginia, October 19, 1981.
Our Founding Fathers devised a system of government unique in all the world--a federation of sovereign States, with as much law and decisionmaking authority as possible kept at the local level. This concept of federalism has been the secret of America's success and will be a priority again as we restore the balance between the Federal, State, and local levels that was intended in the Constitution. - President Ronald Reagan, Remarks at the Bicentennial Observance of the Battle of Yorktown in Virginia, October 19, 1981.
Forcing Americans to accept the dictates of a swollen government in Washington instead of dealing with elected representatives in their city hall has to be one of the more serious mistakes of this century. City halls, county seats, and State legislatures are the very laboratories of democracy, and yet in past years we've closed our eyes to their findings. By removing the possibility of resolving our problems where they occur, too many of us have turned our backs on the genius of our system. Too many of us have stopped believing in our ability to govern ourselves. - Ronald Reagan, Remarks, Inaugural Anniversary Dinner, January 20, 1982.
The Federal Government should only do what the people cannot do for themselves or through their locally elected leaders. - Ronald Reagan, Address Before a Joint Session of the Alabama State Legislature in Montgomery, March 15, 1982.
[Our] system has never failed us, but, for a time, we failed the system. We asked things of government that government was not equipped to give. We yielded authority to the National Government that properly belonged to States or to local governments or to the people themselves. We allowed taxes and inflation to rob us of our earnings and savings and watched the great industrial machine that had made us the most productive people on Earth slow down and the number of unemployed increase.
By 1980, we knew it was time to renew our faith, to strive with all our strength toward the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with an orderly society. - Ronald Reagan, Second Inaugural Address, January 21, 1985.
Too many people, especially in government, feel that the nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a government program. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, May 10, 1972.
Too many people, especially in government, feel that the nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a government program. - President Ronald Reagan, May 10, 1972.
Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Dec. 11, 1972.
There is nothing wrong with our system. Somebody is handling the machinery wrong. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Interview, Sept. 15, 1973.
Common sense practices of the private sector will work in government if you will just give them a chance. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Interview, Sept. 18, 1973.
Wisdom in government is not a one-way street that always runs downhill. More often, the higher up the ladder of government you go, the less common sense you find. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Oct. 24, 1973.
We Americans do not accept that any government has the right to command and order the lives of its people, that any nation has an historic right to use force to export its ideology. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the 40th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, New York, October 24, 1985.
Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them. - President Ronald Reagan.
Government must not supersede the will of the people or the responsibilities of the people. The function of government is not to confer happiness, but to give men the opportunity to work out happiness for themselves. - President Ronald Reagan, The Creative Society, 1968.
Government must keep pace with the changing needs of our state and its people to be sure that government can fulfill its legitimate obligations. - Ronald Reagan, August 6, 1973.
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, New York Times, April 13, 1980.
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, First inaugural address, January 20. 1981.
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. - President Ronald Reagan, First Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981.
Government has an important role in helping develop a country's economic foundation. But the critical test is whether government is genuinely working to liberate individuals by creating incentives to work, save, invest, and succeed. - President Ronald Reagan, October 30, 1981.
The challenge for us in Government is to be worthy of [the people]--to make Government a help, not a hindrance to our people in the challenging days ahead. - Ronald Reagan, State of the union address, January 25, 1983.
There are no such things as limits to growth, because there are no limits on the human capacity for intelligence, imagination and wonder. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the University of South Carolina, Columbia, September 20, 1983.
Government is the people's business and every man, woman and child becomes a shareholder with the first penny of tax paid. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the New York City Partnership Association, January 14, 1982.
We will return government to the governed, and we will not retreat from our program to give this economy back to the people who pay our bills and yearn to save for their future again. - Ronald Reagan, Address Before a Joint Session of the Alabama State Legislature in Montgomery, March 15, 1982.
When you start talking about government as "we" instead of "they," you have been in office too long. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Interview, Sept. 15, 1973.
Government is the people's business and every man, woman and child becomes a shareholder with the first penny of tax paid. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the New York City Partnership Association, January 14, 1982.
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. - Ronald Reagan, “A Time for Choosing” Speech, October 27, 1964.
If no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? Using the temporary authority granted by the people, an increasing number lately have sought to control the means of production, as if this could be done without eventually controlling those who produce. Always this is explained as necessary to the people's welfare. But, "The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principle upon which it was founded" [Montesquieu]. This is as true today as it was when it was written in 1748. - Ronald Reagan, speech, "California and the Problem of Government Growth", January 5, 1967.
You ought to weigh everything that's proposed by government. . . against the loss of a personal freedom. - Governor Ronald Reagan, to Students, April 12, 1973.
Heaven help us if government ever gets into the business of protecting us from ourselves. - Governor Ronald Reagan, to Students, April 12, 1973.
With freedom goes responsibility. Sir Winston Churchill once said you can have 10,000 regulations and still not have respect for law. We might start with the Ten Commandments. If we lived by the Golden Rule, there would be no need for other laws. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Sept. 7, 1973.
Those who advocate more and more government regulation have been experimenting for 40 years, trying to create an economic system in which everyone can somehow be made more prosperous by the toil of someone else. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Oct. 15, 1974.
What the American people are calling for is a return to our first sound principles--the system of self-government and free enterprise that made us great in the first place. - Ronald Reagan, Remarks, Inaugural Anniversary Dinner, January 20, 1982.
Cures were developed for which there were no known diseases. - President Ronald Reagan, Commenting on Congress and the federal budget, 1981.
GOVERNORS
There are some days you go home so frustrated that you get in the shower and you make speeches to the walls of the shower. But there are other days when you go home and feel ten feet tall because you have solved a problem. - Governor Ronald Reagan, to Students, March 8, 1973.
I have never found anything that was as challenging or as fulfilling as being Governor of California. This has been the greatest experience of my life, maybe partly because I not only get to read the script, I help write it. - Governor Ronald Reagan, to Students, Sept. 29, 1973.
HEALTH
I hope you're all Republicans. - President Ronald Reagan, To surgeons as he entered the operating room, March 30, 1981.
My fellow Americans, I have recently been told that I am one of the millions of Americans who will be afflicted with Alzheimer's disease....
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, letter to the American people revealing his Alzheimer's diagnosis, November 5, 1994.
HEROES & HEROISM
At the end of this open mall are those shrines to the giants on whose shoulders we stand.
Directly in front of me, the monument to a monumental man: George Washington, Father of our country. A man of humility who came to greatness reluctantly. He led America out of revolutionary victory into infant nationhood. Off to one side, the stately memorial to Thomas Jefferson. The Declaration of Independence flames with his eloquence.
And then beyond the Reflecting Pool the dignified columns of the Lincoln Memorial. Whoever would understand in his heart the meaning of America will find it in the life of Abraham Lincoln.
Beyond those monuments to heroism is the Potomac River, and on the far shore the sloping hills of Arlington National Cemetery with its row on row of simple white markers bearing crosses or Stars of David. They add up to only a tiny fraction of the price that has been paid for our freedom.
Each one of those markers is a monument to the kinds of hero I spoke of earlier. Their lives ended in places called Belleau Wood, The Argonne, Omaha Beach, Salerno and halfway around the world on Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Pork Chop Hill, the Chosin Reservoir, and in a hundred rice paddies and jungles of a place called Vietnam. - Ronald Reagan, First Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981.
We have every right to dream heroic dreams. Those who say that we are in a time when there are no heroes just don't know where to look. You can see heroes every day going in and out of factory gates. Others, a handful in number, produce enough food to feed all of us and then the world beyond. You meet heroes across a counter — and they are on both sides of that counter. There are entrepreneurs with faith in themselves and faith in an idea who create new jobs, new wealth and opportunity. They are individuals and families whose taxes support the Government and whose voluntary gifts support church, charity, culture, art, and education. Their patriotism is quiet but deep. Their values sustain our national life. - Ronald Reagan, First Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981.
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." - President Ronald Reagan, Speech about the Challenger disaster, January 28, 1986.
HISTORY
Every generation has challenged the customs and values of its predecessors and there is nothing wrong with that. There is something wrong, however, with rejecting all the lessons of the past simply because they are old. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, June 22, 1972.
Your teachers will hate me for this but my favorite subject in college was football. Today, I am fascinated with history. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Students, March 8, 1973.
History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the nation, January 16, 1984.
Our friends in the other party will never forgive us for our success, and are doing everything in their power to rewrite history. - President Ronald Reagan, Republican National Committee Annual Gala, Feb. 3, 1994.
History is a ribbon, always unfurling; history is a journey. And as we continue our journey, we think of those who traveled before us.... Now we hear again the echoes of our past: a general falls to his knees in the hard snow of Valley Forge; a lonely President paces the darkened halls, and ponders his struggle to preserve the Union; the men of the Alamo call out encouragement to each other; a settler pushes west and sings a song, and the song echoes out forever and fills the unknowing air.
It is the American sound. It is hopeful, big-hearted, idealistic, daring, decent, and fair. That's our heritage; that is our song. We sing it still. - Ronald Reagan, Second Inaugural Address, January 21, 1985.
Today, we utter no prayer more fervently than the ancient prayer for peace on Earth. Yet history has shown that peace will not come, nor will our freedom be preserved, by good will alone. There are those in the world who scorn our vision of human dignity and freedom. - Ronald Reagan, Second Inaugural Address, January 21, 1985.
History has shown that peace does not come, nor will our freedom be preserved, by good will alone. There are those in the world who scorn our vision of human dignity and freedom. - President Ronald Reagan, 2d Inaugural Address, January 21, 1985.
Now, as most of you know, I'm not one for looking back. I figure there will be plenty of time for that when I get old. But rather, what I take from the past is inspiration for the future, and what we accomplished during our years at the White House must never be lost amid the rhetoric of political revisionists. - President Ronald Reagan, RNC Annual Gala, Feb. 3, 1994.
HOPE
Hope is to believe in humanity, and in its future. Hope remains the highest reality, the age-old power; hope is at the root of all the great ideas and causes that have bettered the lot of humankind across the centuries. - Ronald Reagan, speech to the United Nations. September 22, 1986.
IDEALS
We're realists; we solve our problems instead of ignoring them, no matter how loud the chorus of despair around us. But we're also idealists, for it was an ideal that brought our ancestors to these shores from every corner of the world. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1983.
JUDGES
The one thing that I do seek are judges that will interpret the law and not write the law. - Ronald Reagan, Washington D.C. June 23, 1986.
LAWS
Respect for the law. . . for the ideal of justice for all for equality these things must come from within society itself. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, October 29, 1972.
To have a lawful society involves the total structure of our society... faith in ourselves... faith in our institutions... our political and economic system and yes, faith and confidence that the American dream of liberty and justice for all still bums fiercely within all our hearts. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, October 29, 1972.
If about 90 percent of the laws that are passed by Congress and the state legislatures each year were lost on the way to the printer, and if all the people in the bureaus went fishing, I don’t think they would be missed for quite a while. - Ronald Reagan, speech in New York City, December 8, 1972.
One legislator accused me of having a 19th century attitude on law and order. That is a totally false charge. I have an 18th century attitude That is when the Founding Fathers made clear that the safety of law abiding citizen should be one of government's primary concerns. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Sept. 7, 1973.
The search for truth in the courtroom is not a game of legal chess, with the rights of society cast as an unwilling pawn. Perhaps more than anything else, we need a change of attitude, from permissiveness to realism. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Feb. 11, 1974.
The teaching of respect for the law cannot be left to education alone. It is a responsibility we all must assume, in our daily lives, in every school, in our churches, throughout our social structure. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, May 2, 1974.
LEADERSHIP
Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don't interfere. - President Ronald Reagan, Fortune, September 15, 1986.
We did not seek the role of leadership that has been thrust upon us. But whether we like it or not, the events of our time demand America's participation. - Governor Ronald Reagan, October 12, 1972.
I know it's hard when you're up to your armpits in alligators to remember you came here to drain the swamp. - President Ronald Reagan, February 10, 1982.
It was clear that America was in deep trouble. We were being led by a group of pessimists whose ideas had been threadbare for years and they hadn't even noticed. The realities of a changing world had long since passed them by. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on Administration Policies, August 25, 1984.
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. - - President Ronald Reagan, March 8, 1985.
A leader, once convinced a particular course of action is the right one, must have the determination to stick with it and be undaunted when the going gets rough. - President Ronald Reagan, December 5, 1990.
The Democrats may remember their lines, but how quickly they forget the lessons of the past. I have witnessed five major wars in my lifetime, and I know how swiftly storm clouds can gather on a peaceful horizon. The next time a Saddam Hussein takes over Kuwait, or North Korea brandishes a nuclear weapon, will we be ready to respond? In the end, it all comes down to leadership, and that is what this country is looking for now. - President Ronald Reagan, RNC Annual Gala, Feb. 3, 1994.
LIBERALS & LIBERALISM
The problem with our liberal friends isn't that they're ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so. - Ronald Reagan.
A few weeks back, a leader of the liberal old guard said he would resist returning the responsibilities and resources that belong to you. He claimed to know of a dozen States that would shirk their responsibilities. Now, just which States did not measure up to his standards, he wouldn't say. But the meaning was clear: He and his colleagues don't believe in you or trust you. - Ronald Reagan, Address Before a Joint Session of the Alabama State Legislature in Montgomery, March 15, 1982.
Liberals are like puppies, all warm, fuzzy and cuddly [pregnant pause]. The only difference is that puppies open their eyes after six weeks! - President Ronald Reagan, 1984.
Although the political landscape has changed, the bold ideas of the 1980's are alive and well. Republican candidates swept every major election across the country last year... and as a result, it seems that our opponents have finally realized how unpopular liberalism really is. So now they're trying to dress their liberal agenda in a conservative overcoat. - President Ronald Reagan, RNC Annual Gala, Feb. 3, 1994.
LIBERTY
The poet called Miss Liberty's torch, "the lamp beside the golden door." Well, that was the entrance to America, and it still is. And now you really know why we're here tonight. - President Ronald Reagan.
Individual liberty depends upon keeping government under control. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Interview, Dec. 30, 1974.
America courageously supported the struggle for individual liberty, self-government, and free enterprise throughout the world and turned the tide of history away from totalitarian darkness and into the warm sunlight of human freedom. - President Ronald Reagan, 2d Inaugural Address, January 21, 1985.
NATIONAL DEFENSE
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. We will maintain sufficient strength to prevail if need be, knowing that if we do so we have the best chance of never having to use that strength. - Ronald Reagan, First Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981.
This is a rule that has to be followed. If our men are fired on, they're going to fire. - Ronald Reagan, Remarks on Board the U.S.S. Constellation, August 20, 1981.
Together we've begun to restore that margin of military safety that ensures peace. Our country's uniform is being worn once again with pride. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 26, 1982.
It wasn't long ago that we had fighter planes that couldn't fly for lack of spare parts, fully half of them; navy ships that couldn't leave port; a rapid deployment force that was neither rapid nor deployable and not much of a force. For the sake of our children and their children, I consider it my duty as President, and all of our duties as citizens, to make sure that America is strong enough to remain free and at peace. - Ronald Reagan, Address Before a Joint Session of the Alabama State Legislature in Montgomery, March 15, 1982.
NATO
From its founding, the Atlantic Alliance has preserved the peace through unity, deterrence, and dialog. First, we and our Allies have stood united by the firm commitment that an attack upon any one of us would be considered an attack upon us all. Second, we and our Allies have deterred aggression by maintaining forces strong enough to ensure that any aggressor would lose more from an attack than he could possibly gain. And third, we and our Allies have engaged the Soviets in a dialog about mutual restraint and arms limitations, hoping to reduce the risk of war and the burden of armaments and to lower the barriers that divide East from West.
These three elements of our policy have preserved the peace in Europe for more than a third of a century. They can preserve it for generations to come, so long as we pursue them with sufficient will and vigor. - Ronald Reagan, Remarks to the National Press Club on Arms Reduction, November 18, 1981.
NUCLEAR POWER
There is almost a superstitious fear of what could happen in an accident to a nuclear power plant. Yet we don't have any background to justify these fears. In Sweden, they have built an atomic power plant under one of their cities. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Students, April 12, 1973.
NUCLEAR WAR
I do have to point out that everything that has been said and everything in their manuals indicates that, unlike us, the Soviets believe that a nuclear war is possible. And they believe it's winnable. - Ronald Reagan.
I ask you, the American people, to support our efforts at negotiating an end to this threat of doomsday which hangs over the world. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on Nuclear Weapons, April 17, 1982.
To prevent nuclear war, we must have the capability to deter nuclear war. This means we must keep our strategic forces strong enough to balance those of the Soviet Union. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on the Observance of Armed Forces Day, May 21, 1983.
Our country has never started a war, and we've never sought nor will we ever develop a strategic first-strike capability. Our sole objective is deterrence, the strength and credibility it takes to prevent war. - President Ronald Reagan, Remarks at the Annual Convention of the American Legion in Seattle, Washington, August 23, 1983.
Now, for decades, we and the Soviets have lived under the threat of mutual assured destruction--if either resorted to the use of nuclear weapons, the other could retaliate and destroy the one who had started it. Is there either logic or morality in believing that if one side threatens to kill tens of millions of our people our only recourse is to threaten killing tens of millions of theirs? - President Ronald Reagan, 2d Inaugural Address, January 21, 1985.
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
The ballistic missile is the most awesome, threatening, and destructive weapon in the history of man. Thus, I welcome the interest of the new Soviet leadership in the reduction of offensive strategic forces. Ultimately, we must remove this menace, once and for all, from the face of the Earth. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the 40th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, New York, October 24, 1985.
Since the dawn of the nuclear age, every American President has sought to limit and end the dangerous competition in nuclear arms. I have no higher priority than to finally realize that dream. I've said before, I will say again: A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. We've gone the extra mile in arms control, but our offers have not always been welcome. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation on the Upcoming Soviet-United States Summit Meeting in Geneva, November 14, 1985.
In 1977 and again in 1982, the United States proposed to the Soviet Union deep reciprocal cuts in strategic forces. These offers were rejected out-of-hand. In 1981 we proposed the complete elimination of a whole category of intermediate-range nuclear forces. Three years later, we proposed a treaty for a global ban on chemical weapons. In 1983 the Soviet Union got up and walked out of the Geneva nuclear arms control negotiations altogether. They did this in protest because we and our European allies had begun to deploy nuclear weapons as a counter to Soviet SS - 20's aimed at our European and other allies. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation on the Upcoming Soviet-United States Summit Meeting in Geneva, November 14, 1985.
OPTIMISM
I've been accused of being an optimist, and it's true. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation, August 18, 1984.
PEACE
Their signs said make love, not war, but they didn't look like they could do either. - Ronald Reagan, 1969.
We all share the love of peace, but our sons and daughters must learn two lessons men everywhere and in every time have had to learn; that the price of freedom is dear but not nearly so costly as the loss of freedom--and that the advance and continuation of civilization depend on those values for which men have always been willing to die. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, June 22, 1972.
Every lesson of history tells us that appeasement does not lead to peace. It invites an aggressor to test the will of a nation unprepared to meet that test. And tragically, those who seemingly want peace the most, our young people, pay the heaviest price for our failure to maintain our strength. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Sept. 15, 1972.
All of us denounce war--all of us consider it man's greatest stupidity. And yet wars happen and they involve the most passionate lovers of peace because there are still barbarians in the world who set the price for peace at death or enslavement and the price is too high. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Sept. 15, 1972.
The dust-bin of history is littered with the remains of those countries which relied on diplomacy to secure their freedom. We must never forget... in the final analysis... that it is our military, industrial and economic strength that offers the best guarantee of peace for America in times of danger. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Sept. 9, 1974.
Peace is the highest aspiration of the American People. We will negotiate for it, sacrifice for it, we will never surrender for it, now or ever. - Ronald Reagan, January 20, 1981.
Peace is not the absence of conflict, but the ability to cope with conflict by peaceful means. - Ronald Reagan, speech in Illinois. May 9, 1982.
Where peace and freedom are at stake, we can't afford to gamble. - Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on the 1984 Budget, January 29, 1983.
Our service men and women know firsthand the horrors of war and the blessings of peace, but they also know that just wanting peace is not enough to guarantee that peace will be sustained. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on the Observance of Armed Forces Day, May 21, 1983.
Great obstacles lie ahead, but they should not deter us. Peace is God's commandment. Peace is the holy shadow cast by men treading on the path of virtue. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the 40th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, New York, October 24, 1985.
But just as we all know what peace is, we certainly know what peace is not. Peace based on repression cannot be true peace and is secure only when individuals are free to direct their own governments. Peace based on partition cannot be true peace. Put simply: Nothing can justify the continuing and permanent division of the European Continent. Walls of partition and distrust must give way to greater communication for an open world.... Peace based on mutual fear cannot be true peace, because staking our future on a precarious balance of terror is not good enough. The world needs a balance of safety. And finally, a peace based on averting our eyes from trouble cannot be true peace. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the 40th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, New York, October 24, 1985.
My mission, stated simply, is a mission for peace. It is to engage the new Soviet leader in what I hope will be a dialog for peace that endures beyond my Presidency. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation on the Upcoming Soviet-United States Summit Meeting in Geneva, November 14, 1985.
Enduring peace requires openness, honest communications, and opportunities for our peoples to get to know one another directly. The United States has always stood for openness. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation on the Upcoming Soviet-United States Summit Meeting in Geneva, November 14, 1985.
THE PEOPLE
If we do nothing else in this administration, we're going to convince this city that the power, the money, and the responsibility of this country begins and ends with the people and not in some puzzle palace here on the Potomac. - Ronald Reagan, Remarks, Inaugural Anniversary Dinner, January 20, 1982.
PERSEVERANCE
The days of sensational, quick victories are mostly behind us, and now we move from the glamour of initial commitment to the grit of the long haul. - Ronald Reagan, Remarks, Inaugural Anniversary Dinner, January 20, 1982.
POLITICAL PARTIES
Forester's Law holds that "in complicated situations, efforts to improve things often make them worse, sometimes much worse, on occasion calamitous."
Those who have seized the leadership of the Democratic Party are practitioners of Forester's Law. They complicate our problems with government solutions that never seem to work. No matter how often a program fails, they prescribe more of the same-at higher cost. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Feb. 3, 1973.
The democratic party has gone more and more in a belief in centralized authority; they believe that the problems are too big for states and local governments. They also believe in the Galbreath theory of economics which is that the government should take more money in taxes because the government can do a better job of spending money on the people's behalf than the people can. - Governor Ronald Reagan, to Students, June 18, 1973.
It is a homecoming for me and I could be very nostalgic. Of course when I lived here before, I was a Democrat and my whole family were Democrats. As a matter of fact, I had an uncle who lived here in Chicago who won a medal once for never having missed an election for 15 years. . . and he had been dead for fourteen. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, August 9, 1973.
We believe the best way to assure prosperity is to generate more jobs. The Democrats believe in more welfare. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Nov. 15, 1973.
I don't have much faith in the third-party movement. I think a third party usually succeeds in electing the people they set out to oppose. - President Ronald Reagan, August 29, 1975.
Sometimes our right hand doesn't know what our far right hand is doing. - President Ronald Reagan, 1981.
I was just reminiscing to myself and thinking that I spent 30 years in the wrong party. If that needs explaining to anyone, it wasn't the last 30 years. - Ronald Reagan, Remarks, Inaugural Anniversary Dinner, January 20, 1982.
When it comes to keeping America strong, free, and at peace, there should be no Republicans or Democrats, just patriotic Americans. We can decide the tough issues not by who is right, but by what is right. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1984.
I believe our Republican Party is the true party of the future because our vision, ideas, and proposals seek to bring out the best in America by challenging the best in our people. The Great Opportunity Party believes in challenging people to do better. The Democratic leadership still insists on challenging government to grow bigger. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on Administration Policies, August 25, 1984.
Our two-party system has served us well over the years, but never better than in those times of great challenge when we came together not as Democrats or Republicans, but as Americans united in a common cause. - Ronald Reagan, Second Inaugural Address, January 21, 1985.
For you see, my fellow Republicans, we are the change! - President Ronald Reagan, RNC speech, August 17, 1992.
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. - President Ronald Reagan, Republican National Convention, August 17, 1992.
POLITICIANS & STATESMEN
I don't know of anybody who was born holding public office. I am not a professional politician. The man [Pat Brown] who currently has the job has more political experience than anybody. That's why I'm running. - President Ronald Reagan. 1966.
Senator McGovern has made enough speeches on enough issues for most Americans to realize that whatever it is he stands for, it is not what most Americans want for their country. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Sept. 30, 1972.
I was a little disappointed that in about three weeks after I was elected, I had automatically in some people's minds become a politician. I still don't think about myself as such. - Governor Ronald Reagan, to Students, June 21, 1973.
Let me tell you what I have learned from looking at those elected to office from the inside. For every one that's bad, for everyone that can be bought, I will tell you there are scores who have never done a favor on the basis of someone's help in getting them elected or on the basis of a campaign contribution. As a matter of fact, I can tell you on behalf of those who contribute to political campaigns, no one has ever come to me in the years I have been Governor and sought a favor or special privilege on the basis of campaign aid or something he might have done to help me achieve this office, not one. - Governor Ronald Reagan,to Students, June 21, 1973.
One thing our founding fathers could not foresee... they were farmers, professional men, businessmen giving of their time and effort to a dream and an idea that became a country... was a nation governed by professional politicians who had a vested interest in getting reelected. They probably envisioned a fellow serving a couple of hitches and then looking eagerly forward to getting back to the farm. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Interview, Sept. 15, 1973.
From the beginning, the old-guard establishment--people who still make policy from abstract statistics, theories, and models rather than looking at the reality of human behavior--have filled the airwaves with gloom, predicting our program couldn't meet our goals. And from the beginning, they've been wrong: When they said inflation and interest rates wouldn't come down, when they said recovery wouldn't come, when they said the expansion wouldn't last, and when they said the deficit wouldn't come down. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation, August 18, 1984.
POVERTY
We are for a provision that destitution should not follow unemployment by reason of old age, and to that end we have accepted Social Security as a step toward meeting the problem. However, we are against those entrusted with this program when they practice deception regarding its fiscal shortcomings, when they charge that any criticism of the program means that we want to end payments. - President Ronald Reagan, a speech which he called "A Time for Choosing", October 27, 1964.
Not quite a decade ago, government declared war on poverty... poverty won. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Oct. 29, 1972.
When I was a boy 90% of the people in this country lived below what today we consider the poverty line. Two-thirds of the people of the United States at the time of my birth lived in what is called substandard housing. Today, it's only 10%. - Governor Ronald Reagan, to Students, March 8. 1973.
PUBLIC POLICY
I promise to bring the American people -- to bring their tax rates down and to keep them down, to provide them incentives to rebuild our economy, to save, to invest in America's future. I will stand by my word. Tonight I'm urging the American people: Seize these new opportunities to produce, to save, to invest, and together we'll make this economy a mighty engine of freedom, hope, and prosperity again. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 26, 1982.
Seldom have the stakes been higher for America. What we do and say here will make all the difference to autoworkers in Detroit, lumberjacks in the Northwest, steelworkers in Steubenville who are in the unemployment lines; to black teenagers in Newark and Chicago; to hard-pressed farmers and small businessmen; and to millions of everyday Americans who harbor the simple wish of a safe and financially secure future for their children. To understand the state of the Union, we must look not only at where we are and where we're going but where we've been. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 26, 1982.
After watching the State of the Union address the other night, I'm reminded of the old adage that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Only in this case, it's not flattery, but grand larceny: the intellectual theft of ideas that you and I recognize as our own. Speech delivery counts for little on the world stage unless you have convictions, and, yes, the vision to see beyond the front row seats. - President Ronald Reagan, regarding Clinton’s Address, Republican National Committee Annual Gala, Feb. 3, 1994.
RELIGION
I know here that you will agree with me that standing up for America also means standing up for the God who has so blessed our land. I believe this country hungers for a spiritual revival. I believe it longs to see traditional values reflected in public policy again. To those who cite the first amendment as reason for excluding God from more and more of our institutions and everyday life, may I just say: The first amendment of the Constitution was not written to protect the people of this country from religious values; it was written to protect religious values from government tyranny. - Ronald Reagan, Address Before a Joint Session of the Alabama State Legislature in Montgomery, March 15, 1982.
America was founded by people who believed that God was their rock of safety. He is ours. I recognize we must be cautious in claiming that God is on our side, but I think it's all right to keep asking if we're on His side. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1984.
RESPONSIBILITY
There is no way for America to turn inward and embrace isolationism in the world as it is today without jeopardizing all the progress we have made toward peace in this century. For those genuinely concerned with peace and willing to pay the price for it, there is only one path to choose. It is not the easiest; it is the wisest. If we carry the burden of responsibility destiny has placed on our shoulders, we do not become a drop-out in world affairs. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Oct. 12, 1972.
We derive our ultimate authority from the people. And we have an obligation to make sure that in carrying out our responsibilities, we do so at a price they can afford. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Oct. 24, 1973.
REVOLUTIONS
There have been revolutions before and since ours, revolutions that simply exchanged one set of rulers for another. Ours was a philosophical revolution that changed the very concept of government. - President Ronald Reagan, Remarks at the Bicentennial Observance of the Battle of Yorktown in Virginia, October 19, 1981.
RIGHTS
Our Revolution was won by and for all who cherish the timeless and universal rights of man. This battle was a vindication of ideas that had been forming for centuries in the Western mind. - President Ronald Reagan, Remarks at the Bicentennial Observance of the Battle of Yorktown in Virginia, October 19, 1981.
There are those in the world today, as there always have been, who recognize human rights as only selective favors to be doled out by the state. They preach revolution against tyranny, but they intend to replace it with the tyranny of totalitarianism. - President Ronald Reagan, Remarks at the Bicentennial Observance of the Battle of Yorktown in Virginia, October 19, 1981.
Mankind's best defense against tyranny and want is limited government--a government which empowers its people, not itself, and which respects the wit and bravery, the initiative, and the generosity of the people. For, above all, human rights are rights of individuals: rights of conscience, rights of choice, rights of association, rights of emigration, rights of self-directed action, and the right to own property. The concept of a nation of free men and women linked together voluntarily is the genius of the system our Founding Fathers established. - President Ronald Reagan, Proclamation 4885, Bill of Rights Day, December 4, 1981.
SACRIFICE
Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. - Ronald Reagan, “A Time for Choosing” Speech, October 27, 1964.
Throughout American history our prisoners of war have been called upon to make uncommon sacrifices. - President Ronald Reagan, Proclamation 4848, National P.O.W.-M.I.A. Recognition Day, 1981, June 12, 1981.
We remember the great sacrifices Americans have made for 200 years, from the Revolutionary War, in which our ancestors pledged ``their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor,'' to the wars of this century, in which hundreds of thousands of young Americans and millions of others gave their lives on the battlefields of Europe, Asia, and Africa in the struggle for freedom. - President Ronald Reagan, Proclamation 4885, Bill of Rights Day, December 4, 1981.
No speech can adequately portray their suffering, their sacrifice, their heroism. - President Ronald Reagan, Remarks, Commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the Normandy, Invasion, D-day, June 6, 1984.
SCIENCE
America has always been greatest when we dared to be great. We can reach for greatness again. We can follow our dreams to distant stars, living and working in space for peaceful, economic, and scientific gain. Tonight, I am directing NASA to develop a permanently manned space station and to do it within a decade. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1984.
Nowhere do we so effectively demonstrate our technological leadership and ability to make life better on Earth. The Space Age is barely a quarter of a century old. But already we've pushed civilization forward with our advances in science and technology. Opportunities and jobs will multiply as we cross new thresholds of knowledge and reach deeper into the unknown.
Our progress in space--taking giant steps for all mankind--is a tribute to American teamwork and excellence. Our finest minds in government, industry, and academia have all pulled together. And we can be proud to say: We are first; we are the best; and we are so because we're free. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1984.
SOCIETY
Respect for the law... for the ideal of justice for all for equality these things must come from within society itself. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Oct. 29, 1972.
Right now, America is caught between two whirlwinds forcing potentially massive disruptions in our society, the effort to protect the environment and the world wide energy shortage. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Nov. 17, 1972.
SOLDIERS & SAILORS
At the end of this open mall are those shrines to the giants on whose shoulders we stand.
Directly in front of me, the monument to a monumental man: George Washington, Father of our country. A man of humility who came to greatness reluctantly. He led America out of revolutionary victory into infant nationhood. Off to one side, the stately memorial to Thomas Jefferson. The Declaration of Independence flames with his eloquence.
And then beyond the Reflecting Pool the dignified columns of the Lincoln Memorial. Whoever would understand in his heart the meaning of America will find it in the life of Abraham Lincoln.
Beyond those monuments to heroism is the Potomac River, and on the far shore the sloping hills of Arlington National Cemetery with its row on row of simple white markers bearing crosses or Stars of David. They add up to only a tiny fraction of the price that has been paid for our freedom.
Each one of those markers is a monument to the kinds of hero I spoke of earlier. Their lives ended in places called Belleau Wood, The Argonne, Omaha Beach, Salerno and halfway around the world on Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Pork Chop Hill, the Chosin Reservoir, and in a hundred rice paddies and jungles of a place called Vietnam. - Ronald Reagan, First Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981.
...we are proud of all of you, and while there may be some people who think that the uniform is associated with violence, you are the peacemakers. It's because of what you're doing that we can be sure of peace. - Ronald Reagan, Remarks on Board the U.S.S. Constellation, August 20, 1981.
The willingness of our citizens to give freely and unselfishly of themselves, even their lives, in defense of our democratic principles, gives this great Nation continued strength and vitality. From Valley Forge to Vietnam, through war and peace, valiant Americans have answered the call to duty with honor and dignity.- Ronald Reagan, Veterans Day Proclamation, October 26, 1981.
Together we've begun to restore that margin of military safety that ensures peace. Our country's uniform is being worn once again with pride. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 26, 1982.
The men and women in our armed services are our final protection against those who wish us ill. The soldier, the sailor, the airman, and the marine in the United States and around the world are the ultimate guardians of our freedom to say what we think, go where we will, choose who we want for our leaders, and pray as we wish. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on Armed Forces Day, May 15, 1982.
Their jobs are difficult, requiring judgment, technical know-how, endurance, and in many cases exposure to danger. We ask them to put in long hours under trying conditions. Many serve far from their homes and families, prepared, if need be, to make the ultimate sacrifice for our nation. In short, they give us their all.
So, I would like to thank them today: the Army tank crewmember in Germany or Korea, responsible for maintaining a 55-ton machine so that it's ready at a moment's notice; the sailor in the Indian Ocean who's been away from home for 4 months and is working 18 hours a day in a hot engine room or carrying chocks for returning aircraft; the Air Force security policeman guarding our nuclear alert aircraft in the Texas heat or the North Dakota winter; the Marine squad leader on Okinawa working with his men to provide the most efficient combat team in the world. All these people and the rest of their comrades in arms we thank today. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on Armed Forces Day, May 15, 1982.
Our national determination to defend freedom at the borders where it's threatened is fully matched by the quality and spirit of the more than 2 million soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines who proudly wear the American uniform. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on Armed Forces Day, May 15, 1982.
In James Michener's book ``The Bridges at Toko-Ri,'' he writes of an officer waiting through the night for the return of planes to a carrier as dawn is coming on. And he asks, ``Where do we find such men?'' Well, we find them where we've always found them. They are the product of the freest society man has ever known. They make a commitment to the military--make it freely, because the birthright we share as Americans is worth defending. God bless America. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on Armed Forces Day, May 15, 1982.
Our Armed Forces are finally properly paid; after years of neglect are well trained and becoming better equipped and supplied. And the American uniform is once again worn with pride. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1983.
Their job is unusually difficult not only because it involves hardship and danger, or because it requires long periods away from families and loved ones, or even because it may demand the giving of one's life in defense of our nation. The difficulty of the military profession grows out of all of these, plus the fact that our service men and women are always faced with several of the most fundamental questions we ask as individuals and as a nation--the questions of war and peace and the use of force in the world. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on the Observance of Armed Forces Day, May 21, 1983.
The men and women in our Armed Forces also live with a second paradox. They spend their entire time in service training to fight and preparing for a war which we and they pray will never come. As individuals, these men and women want peace as much as we do as a nation. In fact, they want it even more, because they understand that war is not the romantic heroism we read about in novels or see in the movies, but the stark truth of suffering and sacrifice and the slain promise of youth. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on the Observance of Armed Forces Day, May 21, 1983.
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 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. - President Ronald Reagan, Normandy, France, June 6, 1984.
Those who fought in Vietnam are part of us, part of our history. They reflected the best in us. No number of wreaths, no amount of music and memorializing will ever do them justice but it is good for us that we honor them and their sacrifice. And it's good that we do it in the reflected glow of the enduring symbols of our Republic. - President Ronald Reagand, Remarks at Dedication Ceremonies for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Statue, November 11, 1984.
Let me say to the Vietnam veterans gathered here today: When you returned home, you brought solace to the loved ones of those who fell, but little solace was given to you. Some of your countrymen were unable to distinguish between our native distaste for war and the stainless patriotism of those who suffered its scars. - President Ronald Reagand, Remarks at Dedication Ceremonies for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Statue, November 11, 1984.
Our system--this way of life we call democracy and freedom--really works because of the dedicated Americans like that GI in Germany, who've always been willing to defend our way of life from foreign aggressors -- from those who do not love freedom and seek to destroy it. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on Armed Forces Day, May 18, 1985.
The challenge is the task of defending freedom, and the call they've answered is summarized in three words: duty, honor, country. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on Armed Forces Day, May 18, 1985.
I know I speak for all Americans when I say to our soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and coast guardsmen: We thank you for the job you're doing and the sacrifices you're making for all of us at home. And we're grateful and proud of you for your devotion to country and to the cause of freedom. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on Armed Forces Day, May 18, 1985.
Four times in my lifetime, our soldiers have been sent overseas to fight in foreign lands. Their remains can be found from Flanders Field to the islands of the Pacific. Not once were those young men sent abroad in the cause of conquest. Not once did they come home claiming a single square inch of some other country as a trophy of war. A great danger in the past, however, has been the failure by our enemies to remember that while we Americans detest war, we love freedom and stand ready to sacrifice for it. We love freedom not only because it's practical and beneficial but because it is morally right and just. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation on the Upcoming Soviet-United States Summit Meeting in Geneva, November 14, 1985.
Here in America we've been fortunate to be the keeper and custodian of a dream--a dream that began this nation, a dream that millions of people hope to share in someday. And every member of America's Armed Forces has a special part in keeping that dream alive. The dream, of course, is freedom, and truly those of you in uniform today are freedom's honor guard. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on Armed Forces Day, May 17, 1986.
STRENGTH
Of the four wars in my lifetime none came about because the United States was too strong. - Ronald Reagan.
Detours are rarely the road to excellence, and excess never leads to strength. - Ronald Reagan, Remarks, Inaugural Anniversary Dinner, January 20, 1982.
Fortunately, we and our allies have rediscovered the strength of our common democratic values, and we're applying them as a cornerstone of a comprehensive strategy for peace with freedom. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1983.
TAXES
Republicans believe every day is 4th of July, but Democrats believe every day is April 15. - President Ronald Reagan, Attributed.
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. - President Ronald Reagan, a speech which he called "A Time for Choosing", October 27, 1964.
There are 116 taxes in a suit of clothes each on of us is wearing, 151 on the bread we had for dinner tonight. There are 100 taxes on an egg and I don;t think the chicken put them there; someplace between the hen and the table they crept in. - Ronald Reagan, speech in New York. December 23, 1972.
The property tax is an antiquated tax. It came into existence before income taxes and was a kind of an income tax when most of the revenues came from the land. - Governor Ronald Reagan, to Students, April 12, 1973.
History reveals that no society has long survived a tax burden that reached one-third of the people's earnings. Looking back on the fallen empires of the past, one sees the first warning signs appear. As the burden grows heavier, there is a growing lack of respect for government and the law. Fraud becomes widespread and crime increases. Are we to say none of those things is taking place here. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, May 23, 1973.
Ask any citizen on any day if taxes are too high, if government spends too much, and if he would like to have a say about government's right to confiscate his earnings. The answer would be, "hell yes!" - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Sept. 7, 1973.
More than any single thing, high rates of taxation destroy incentive to earn, to save, to invest. And they cripple productivity, lead to deficit financing and inflation, and create unemployment. - President Ronald Reagan. September 9, 1980.
But great as our tax burden is, it has not kept pace with public spending. For decades, we have piled deficit upon deficit, mortgaging our future and our children's future for the temporary convenience of the present. To continue this long trend is to guarantee tremendous social, cultural, political, and economic upheavals. - President Ronald Reagan, First Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981.
Only people pay taxes, all the taxes. Government just uses business in a kind of sneaky way to help collect the taxes. They're hidden in the price; we aren't aware of how much tax we actually pay. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation on the Economy, February 5, 1981.
If I could paraphrase a well-known statement by Will Rogers that he never met a man he didn’t like — I’m afraid we have some people around here who never met a tax they didn’t like. - President Ronald Reagan, Tax Cut Bill address. July 27, 1981.
The “tax and tax, spend and spend” policies of the last few decades lead only to economic disaster. Our Government must return to the tradition of living within its means and must do it now. - President Ronald Reagan, speech in Washington D.C. September 24, 1981.
Americans today need strong backs and deep pockets to shoulder the highest tax burden in peacetime history. And yet some in Washington still want more. Now, we don't have deficits because our people live too well and are not taxed enough; we have big deficits because government lives too well and spends too much. - President Ronald Reagan, Address Before a Joint Session of the Alabama State Legislature in Montgomery, March 15, 1982.
A propaganda campaign would have us believe that we have high deficits because Americans are not taxed enough. Well, taxes doubled between 1976 and 1981, and the deficits grew and grew. - President Ronald Reagan, Address Before a Joint Session of the Alabama State Legislature in Montgomery, March 15, 1982.
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. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to National Association of Realtors, March 28, 1982.
Washington is a town that loves to spend money--your money. And if that isn't enough, they'll borrow--a trillion dollars so far.
As the French economist Bastiat said a long time ago, public funds seemingly belong to no one; the temptation to bestow them on someone is irresistible. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on the Federal Budget, May 22, 1982.
We don't think widows and children should lose what generations of love and toil created just to pay Uncle Sam a tax. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on Agriculture and Grain Exports, October 15, 1982.
You know, inflation is actually a form of taxation.... If the Government wants or needs more tax money, it should openly raise taxes, not follow practices that create inflation. Of course, raising taxes isn't as safe politically as letting inflation do it. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on the 1984 Budget, January 29, 1983.
The big spenders are still alive and well. And these people spared no effort to take away the third year of your tax cut, to delay indexing.... Well, with the help of responsible Republicans and Democrats, we fought them back and won. And with your help, we'll keep fighting and winning. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on the First Session of the 98th Congress, November 19, 1983.
We must simplify our tax system, make it more fair, and bring the rates down for all who work and earn. - President Ronald Reagan, Second Inaugural Address, January 21, 1985.
We must never again abuse the trust of working men and women by sending their earnings on a futile chase after the spiraling demands of a bloated Federal Establishment. - President Ronald Reagan, 2d Inaugural Address, January 21, 1985.
TELEVISION
Because TV is the type of medium it is, bias cannot always be measured solely in the amount of time given to one side or the other... or to explanations of what is missing from the film story. The inflection of the announcer's voice... the arched eyebrow... the skeptical expression... and those can and have injected an element of bias in television news. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, May 4, 1972.
You sit there and you watch your television set, and you hear a man make a speech to you. And they switch off, and three men or four men, or one man sits there and says, "I will now tell you what he said for the last thirty minutes." Frankly, I've always found it a little insulting to my intelligence. You just heard the man. I don't need someone to put it all together and say, "Now, here's what he really said." - Governor Ronald Reagan, to Students, Oct. 15, 1973.
TERM LIMITS
I think the two terms is enough for a Governor. I think there is a risk that a man who wanted to set up a political machine has a better opportunity to do that... in the Governor's Office. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Rocklin School, March 8, 1973.
TERRORISM
No amount of rhetoric can change a crime into a social or political cause. Kidnapping is a violent crime and those who engage in this kind of terrorism, whatever their alleged motives, are not romantic revolutionaries; they are common, sordid, vicious criminals and should be treated accordingly. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, May 2, 1974.
We must take a stand against terrorism in the world and combat it with firmness, for it is a most cowardly and savage violation of peace. We must remember our heritage, who we are and what we are, and how this nation, this island of freedom, came into being.- Ronald Reagan, campaign speech in Chicago, August 1980.
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, First Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981.
I am determined that my Administration will do whatever is necessary to reduce the incidence of terrorism against us anywhere in the world and to see that the perpetrators of terrorist acts are brought to justice. - President Ronald Reagan, Message to the Congress Transmitting Proposed Legislation To Combat International Terrorism, April 26, 1984.
We must work to assure that there is no role in civilized society for indiscriminate threatening, intimidation, detention, or murder of innocent people. We must make it clear to any country that is tempted to use violence to undermine democratic governments, destabilize our friends, thwart efforts to promote democratic governments, or disrupt our lives that it has nothing to gain, and much to lose. - President Ronald Reagan, Message to the Congress Transmitting Proposed Legislation To Combat International Terrorism, April 26, 1984.
International terrorism is a growing problem for all of us in the Western World--not just the United States. While we in the Western democracies are most often the targets, terrorist attacks are becoming increasingly violent and indiscriminate....
This nation bears global responsibilities that demand that we maintain a worldwide presence and not succumb to these cowardly attempts at intimidation. - President Ronald Reagan, Statement on Signing the 1984 Act To Combat International Terrorism, October 19, 1984.
All of America was concerned about you; many prayers were said for your safe release. In the days that you were away, our attention was never once distracted from your plight, and we wouldn't rest until you returned to us safe and whole. None of you were held prisoner because of any personal wrong that any of you had done to anyone; you were held simply because you were Americans. In the minds of your captors, you represented us. Well, whatever the presumed grievance or political motive that caused these actions, let there be no confusion--a crime was committed against you. Hijacking is a crime; kidnaping is a crime; murder is a crime; and holding our people prisoner is a crime. When cruelty is inflicted on innocent people, it discredits whatever cause in whose name it is done. And those who commit such deeds are enemies of the peace. Now you're returned to us, and we have a deep felt sigh of relief, but there are promises to be kept.
The day your plane was hijacked, the terrorists focused their brutality on a brave young man who was a member of the Armed Forces of the United States. They beat Robbie Stethem without mercy and shot him to death. Our joy at your return is substantial, but so is our pain at what was done to that son of America. I know you care deeply about Robbie Stethem and what was done to him. We will not forget what was done to him. There will be no forgetting. His murderers must be brought to justice. - President Ronald Reagan, Remarks to the Freed Hostages From the Trans World Airlines Hijacking Incident, July 2, 1985.
There is a temptation to see the terrorist act as simply the erratic work of a small group of fanatics. We make this mistake at great peril, for the attacks on America, her citizens, her allies, and other democratic nations in recent years do form a pattern of terrorism that has strategic implications and political goals. And only by moving our focus from the tactical to the strategic perspective, only by identifying the pattern of terror and those behind it, can we hope to put into force a strategy to deal with it. - President Ronald Reagan, Remarks at the Annual Convention of the American Bar Association, July 8, 1985.
And then there is Cuba, a nation whose government has, since the 1960's, openly armed, trained, and directed terrorists operating on at least three continents. This has occurred in Latin America. The OAS has repeatedly passed sanctions against Castro for sponsoring terrorism in places and countries too numerous to mention. This has also occurred in Africa. President Carter openly accused the Castro government of supporting and training Katangan terrorists from Angola in their attacks on Zaire. And even in the Middle East, Castro himself has acknowledged that he actively assisted the Sandinistas in the early seventies when they were training in the Middle East with terrorist factions of the PLO. - President Ronald Reagan, Remarks at the Annual Convention of the American Bar Association, July 8, 1985.
So, there we have it--Iran, Libya, North Korea, Cuba, Nicaragua--continents away, tens of thousands of miles apart, but the same goals and objectives. I submit to you that the growth in terrorism in recent years results from the increasing involvement of these states in terrorism in every region of the world. This is terrorism that is part of a pattern, the work of a confederation of terrorist states. Most of the terrorists who are kidnaping and murdering American citizens and attacking American installations are being trained, financed, and directly or indirectly controlled by a core group of radical and totalitarian governments--a new, international version of Murder, Incorporated. And all of these states are united by one simple criminal phenomenon-- their fanatical hatred of the United States, our people, our way of life, our international stature. - President Ronald Reagan, Remarks at the Annual Convention of the American Bar Association, July 8, 1985.
Now, for the benefit of these outlaw governments who are sponsoring international terrorism against our nation, I'm prepared to offer a brief lesson in American history. A number of times in America's past, foreign tyrants, warlords, and totalitarian dictators have misinterpreted the well-known likeability, patience, and generosity of the American people as signs of weakness or even decadence. Well, it's true; we are an easygoing people, slow to wrath, hesitant to see danger looming over every horizon. But it's also true that when the emotions of the American people are aroused, when their patriotism and their anger are triggered, there are no limits to their national valor nor their consuming passion to protect this nation's cherished tradition of freedom. - President Ronald Reagan, Remarks at the Annual Convention of the American Bar Association, July 8, 1985.
The American people are not--I repeat--not going to tolerate intimidation, terror, and outright acts of war against this nation and its people. And we're especially not going to tolerate these attacks from outlaw states run by the strangest collection of misfits, loony tunes, and squalid criminals since the advent of the Third Reich. - President Ronald Reagan, Remarks at the Annual Convention of the American Bar Association, July 8, 1985.
With regard to the Soviet Union, there is one matter that I cannot let go unaddressed today. During the recent hostage crisis in Beirut--39 Americans were brutally kidnaped; an American sailor was viciously beaten; another American sailor stomped and shot to death; the families and loved ones of these hostages undergo indescribable suffering and a sense of distress, anger, and outrage spreading through our nation like a prairie fire--the Soviet Union made some official comments through its government-controlled press. The Soviet Government suggested that the United States was not sincerely concerned about this crisis, but that we were, instead, in the grip of -- and I use the Soviets' word here--``hysteria.'' The Soviet Union also charged that the United States was only looking for a--and, again, I use their word--``pretext'' for a military--and, again, I use their word--``invasion.'' Well now, ladies and gentlemen of the American Bar, there is a non-Soviet word for that kind of talk. It's an extremely useful, time-tested original American word, one with deep roots in our rich agricultural and farming tradition. - President Ronald Reagan, Remarks at the Annual Convention of the American Bar Association, July 8, 1985.
We must act against the criminal menace of terrorism with the full weight of the law, both domestic and international. We will act to indict, apprehend, and prosecute those who commit the kind of atrocities the world has witnessed in recent weeks. We can act together as free peoples who wish not to see our citizens kidnaped or shot or blown out of the skies--just as we acted together to rid the seas of piracy at the turn of the last century. And incidentally, those of you who are legal scholars will note the law's description of pirates: ``hostis humanis''--the enemies of all mankind. There can be no place on Earth left where it is safe for these monsters to rest or train or practice their cruel and deadly skills. We must act together, or unilaterally if necessary, to ensure that terrorists have no sanctuary anywhere. - President Ronald Reagan, Remarks at the Annual Convention of the American Bar Association, July 8, 1985.
The answer to the threat of international terrorism is difficult, but it can be found. It is to be found in a clear understanding of the problem and the expression of our national will to do something about it. It's always been so with any important cause; it's why our Declaration of Independence was more important to our Revolution than any one military maneuver or single battle. And that is why we do not today engage in policy discussions or focus on strategic options but simply state the facts about the nature of international terrorism and affirm America's will to resist it. - President Ronald Reagan, Remarks at the Annual Convention of the American Bar Association, July 8, 1985.
Well, you know our position has always been... that you do not negotiate or bargain with terrorists. - President Ronald Reagan, to Reporters on the Achille Lauro Hijacking Incident, October 10, 1985.
The use of force, subversion, and terror has made the world a more dangerous place. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation on the Upcoming Soviet-United States Summit Meeting in Geneva, November 14, 1985.
Terrorism has no justification. It spreads only by the use of contemptible means, ignoring the values of human life, freedom and dignity. It must be fought relentlessly and without compromise. - President Ronald Reagan, Statement on International Terrorism at Tokyo Economic Summit Conference, May 5, 1986.
The continuing fight against terrorism is a task which the international community as a whole has to undertake, we pledge ourselves to make maximum efforts to fight against that scourge. Terrorism must be fought effectively through determined, tenacious, discreet and patient action combining national measures with international cooperation. - President Ronald Reagan, Statement on International Terrorism at Tokyo Economic Summit Conference, May 5, 1986.
History is likely to record that 1986 was the year when the world, at long last, came to grips with the plague of terrorism. For too long, the world was paralyzed by the argument that terrorism could not be stopped until the grievances of terrorists were addressed. The complicated and heartrending issues that perplex mankind are no excuse for violent, inhumane attacks, nor do they excuse not taking aggressive action against those who deliberately slaughter innocent people.
In our world there are innumerable groups and organizations with grievances, some justified, some not. Only a tiny fraction has been ruthless enough to try to achieve their ends through vicious and cowardly acts of violence upon unarmed victims. Perversely, it is often the terrorists themselves who prevent peacefully negotiated solutions. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on Terrorism, May 31, 1986.
Effective antiterrorist action has also been thwarted by the claim that--as the quip goes--``One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.'' That's a catchy phrase, but also misleading. Freedom fighters do not need to terrorize a population into submission. Freedom fighters target the military forces and the organized instruments of repression keeping dictatorial regimes in power. Freedom fighters struggle to liberate their citizens from oppression and to establish a form of government that reflects the will of the people.... Terrorists intentionally kill or maim unarmed civilians, often women and children, often third parties who are not in any way part of a dictatorial regime. Terrorists are always the enemies of democracy. Luckily, the world is shaking free from its lethargy and moving forward to stop the bloodshed. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on Terrorism, May 31, 1986.
In this storm-tossed world of terrorists and totalitarians, America must always champion freedom, for freedom is the one tide that will lead us to the safe and open harbor of peace. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1986.
TOTALITARIANISM
I've been saying for some years now that the cause of totalitarian ideology is on the wane; that all across the world there is an uprising of mind and will, a tidal wave of longing for freedom and self-rule. Well, no one senses this better than those who now stand atop totalitarian states, especially those nations on the outer periphery of the totalitarian world like Iran, Libya, North Korea, Cuba, and Nicaragua. Their rulers are frightened; they know that freedom is on the march and when it triumphs their time in power is over.
You see, it's true that totalitarian governments are very powerful and, over the short term, may be better organized than the democracies. But it's also true--and no one knows this better than totalitarian rulers themselves--that these regimes are weak in a way that no democracy can ever be weak. For the fragility of totalitarian government is the fragility of any regime whose hold on its people is limited to the instruments of police-state repression. That's why the stakes are so high and why we must persevere. Freedom itself is the issue--our own and the entire world's. Yes, America is still a symbol to a few, a symbol that is feared and hated, but to more, many millions more, a symbol that is loved, a country that remains a shining city on a hill. - President Ronald Reagan, Remarks at the Annual Convention of the American Bar Association, July 8, 1985.
TREATIES
There was a time in the not too distant past when you could have taken all the non-aggression pacts and disarmament treaties with their beribboned seals and signatures and papered the walls of the League of Nations. If that is too cynical a view, let me "make it perfectly clear," that along with a willingness to negotiate, America can best protect the peace by maintaining a realistic and credible ability to defend itself should the need occur. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Oct. 12, 1972.
The United States has never sought treaties merely to paper over differences. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the 40th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, New York, October 24, 1985.
TYRANTS
There are those in the world today, as there always have been, who recognize human rights as only selective favors to be doled out by the state. They preach revolution against tyranny, but they intend to replace it with the tyranny of totalitarianism. - President Ronald Reagan, Remarks at the Bicentennial Observance of the Battle of Yorktown in Virginia, October 19, 1981.
Tyrants are tempted by weakness, and peace and freedom can only be preserved by strength. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on the Observance of Armed Forces Day, May 21, 1983.
UNITED NATIONS
The United Nations was founded in the aftermath of World War II to protect future generations from the scourge of war, to promote political self-determination and global prosperity, and to strengthen the bonds of civility among nations. The founders sought to replace a world at war with a world of civilized order. They hoped that a world of relentless conflict would give way to a new era, one where freedom from violence prevailed.
Whatever challenges the world was bound to face, the founders intended this body to stand for certain values, even if they could not be enforced, and to condemn violence, even if it could not be stopped. This body was to speak with the voice of moral authority. That was to be its greatest power. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the 38th Session of the U.N., September 26, 1983.
The founders of the U.N. expected that member nations would behave and vote as individuals, after they had weighed the merits of an issue--rather like a great, global town meeting. The emergence of blocs and the polarization of the U.N. undermine all that this organization initially valued. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the 38th Session of the U.N., September 26, 1983.
Today, at the beginning of this 38th Session, I solemnly pledge my nation to upholding the original ideals of the United Nations. Our goals are those that guide this very body. Our ends are the same as those of the U.N.'s founders, who sought to replace a world at war with one where the rule of law would prevail, where human rights were honored, where development would blossom, where conflict would give way to freedom from violence. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the 38th Session of the U.N., September 26, 1983.
The U.N. is a political institution, and politics requires compromise. We recognize that, but let us remember from those first days, one guiding star was supposed to light our path toward the U.N. vision of peace and progress--a star of freedom. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the 40th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, New York, October 24, 1985.
VETO
I also propose improvements in the budgeting process. Some 43 of our 50 States grant their Governors the right to veto individual items in appropriation bills without having to veto the entire bill. California is one of those 43 States. As Governor, I found this line-item veto was a powerful tool against wasteful or extravagant spending. It works in 43 States. Let's put it to work in Washington for all the people.
It would be most effective if done by constitutional amendment. The majority of Americans approve of such an amendment, just as they and I approve of an amendment mandating a balanced Federal budget. Many States also have this protection in their constitutions. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1984.
VIETNAM WAR
Never again must this country ask a young man to fight and die unless it is for something we believe in so much that we tell him at the same time we're going to turn our full energies behind you to get it over with and to win it. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Students, April 26, 1973.
Our reason for being here today is to dedicate a memorial to the 6,000 Californians who gave their lives in the defense of freedom in South-east Asia.
There are those who say that Vietnam was a war without heroes, because the conflict became a controversy that divided our people for so long. I do not accept that. They were all heroes, expecially those we are honoring here today. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Feb. 11, 1974.
Those who fought in Vietnam are part of us, part of our history. They reflected the best in us. No number of wreaths, no amount of music and memorializing will ever do them justice but it is good for us that we honor them and their sacrifice. And it's good that we do it in the reflected glow of the enduring symbols of our Republic. - President Ronald Reagand, Remarks at Dedication Ceremonies for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Statue, November 11, 1984.
The men of Vietnam answered the call of their country. Some of them died in the arms of many of you here today, asking you to look after a newly born child or care for a loved one. They died uncomplaining. The tears staining their mud-caked faces were not for self-pity but for the sorrow they knew the news of their death would cause their families and friends.
As you knelt alongside his litter and held him one last time, you heard his silent message--he asked you not to forget. - President Ronald Reagand, Remarks at Dedication Ceremonies for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Statue, November 11, 1984.
VOTING
Americans do not want to be part of a political philosophy that views the individual as part of some voting bloc. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Feb. 3, 1973.
WAR: General
Twice in my lifetime, I have seen the peoples of Europe plunged into the tragedy of war. Twice in my lifetime, Europe has suffered destruction and military occupation in wars that statesmen proved powerless to prevent, soldiers unable to contain, and ordinary citizens unable to escape. And twice in my lifetime, young Americans have bled their lives into the soil of those battlefields not to enrich or enlarge our domain, but to restore the peace and independence of our friends and Allies.
All of us who lived through those troubled times share a common resolve that they must never come again. - Ronald Reagan, Remarks to the National Press Club on Arms Reduction, November 18, 1981.
History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the nation, January 16, 1984.
Governments which rest upon the consent of the governed do not wage war on their neighbors. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1984.
We cannot count on the instinct for survival to protect us against war. Despite all the wasted lives and hopes that war produces, it has remained a regular, if horribly costly, means by which nations have sought to settle their disputes or advance their goals. And the progress in weapons technology has far outstripped the progress toward peace. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the 38th Session of the U.N., September 26, 1983.
WASHINGTON D.C.
I've learned in Washington, that that's the only place where sound travels faster than light. - Ronald Reagan, December 12, 1983.
The past few days when I've been at that window upstairs, I've thought a bit of the `shining city upon a hill.' The phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the America he imagined. What he imagined was important because he was an early Pilgrim, an early freedom man. He journeyed here on what today we'd call a little wooden boat; and like the other Pilgrims, he was looking for a home that would be free. I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still. And how stands the city on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure, and happier than it was 8 years ago. But more than that: After 200 years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she's still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home. - President Ronald Reagan, President's Farewell Address, January, 1989.
WEAKNESS
Tyrants are tempted by weakness, and peace and freedom can only be preserved by strength. - President Ronald Reagan, Radio Address to the Nation on the Observance of Armed Forces Day, May 21, 1983.
WEALTH
Our aim is to increase our national wealth so all will have more, not just redistribute what we already have which is just a sharing of scarcity. We can begin to reward hard work and risk-taking, by forcing this Government to live within its means.
Over the years we've let negative economic forces run out of control. We stalled the judgment day, but we no longer have that luxury. We're out of time. - Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation on the Economy, February 5, 1981.
WEAPONS
From the beginning of time man has deplored the need for weapons. A sword is not as productive as a plowshare. But over this same span of years, men have learned to their sorrow you have to have both sword and plowshare or you must one day choose between slavery and death. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Sept. 5, 1972.
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, First Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981.
WELFARE
If all of this seems like a great deal of trouble, think what's at stake. We are faced with the most evil enemy mankind has known in his long climb from the swamp to the stars. There can be no security anywhere in the free world if there is no fiscal and economic stability within the United States. Those who ask us to trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state are architects of a policy of accommodation. - Ronald Reagan, speech, "A Time for Choosing", October 27, 1964.
Welfare's purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence. - President Ronald Reagan, Los Angeles Times, January 7, 1970.
Welfare should help the blind, disabled, the aged who cannot provide for themselves. The other people on welfare... the able-bodied... would be treated as people temporarily out of work. The rest of us have to help them out until we can get them back to work again and that is the principle of welfare as I see it. - Governor Ronald Reagan, to Students, March 3, 1973.
Americans have had their night on the town of social tinkering and social experimentation. They are now suffering the morning after, and they are hungry for some good old ham and eggs fiscal common sense. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Aug. 9, 1973.
Welfare's excesses are like a double-jointed octopus with remarkable regenerative powers. When you wriggle free of one tentacle, another grows in its place and squeezes the public's purse strings a little tighter. - Governor Ronald Reagan, Speech, Aug. 9, 1974.
No one who lived through the Great Depression can ever look upon an unemployed person with anything but compassion. To me, there is no greater tragedy than a breadwinner willing to work, with a job skill but unable to find a market for that job skill. Back in those dark depression days I saw my father on a Christmas eve open what he thought was a Christmas greeting from his boss. Instead, it was the blue slip telling him he no longer had a job. The memory of him sitting there holding that slip of paper and then saying in a half whisper, “That's quite a Christmas present,” it will stay with me as long as I live. - President Ronald Reagan, speech, "To Restore America", March 31, 1976.
You know, I think the best possible social program is a job. - President Ronald Reagan, 1980.
Welfare's purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence. - President Ronald Reagan, Los Angeles Times, January 7, 1980.
In the past two decades, we have created hundreds of new programs to provide personal assistance. Many of these programs may have come from a good heart, but not all have come from a clear head. - Ronald Reagan, speech in Washington D.C. September 24, 1981.
WOMEN
I've never really felt the need of women's lib. I've always thought that you were in charge of things, and I've never squawked about it, I kind of like it that way. - Governor Ronald Reagan, to Students, Sept. 24, 1973.
WORK
We cannot continue any longer our wasteful ways at the expense of the workers of this land or of our children. - Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation on the Economy, February 5, 1981.
Tonight, in homes across this country, unemployment is the problem uppermost on many people's minds. Getting Americans back to work is an urgent priority for all of us and especially for this administration. But remember, you can't solve unemployment without solving the things that caused it, the out-of-control government spending, the skyrocketing inflation and interest rates that led to unemployment in the first place. Unless you get at the root causes of the problem--which is exactly what our economic program is doing--you may be able to temporarily relieve the symptoms, but you'll never cure the disease. You may even make it worse. - President Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation on the Economy, October 13, 1982.
No domestic challenge is more crucial than providing stable, permanent jobs for all Americans who want to work. - Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, January 25, 1983.
WORLD WAR II
We stand today at a place of battle, one that 40 years ago saw and felt the worst of war. Men bled and died here for a few feet of -- or inches of sand, as bullets and shellfire cut through their ranks....
No speech can adequately portray their suffering, their sacrifice, their heroism. President Lincoln once reminded us that through their deeds, the dead of battle have spoken more eloquently for themselves than any of the living ever could. But we can only honor them by rededicating ourselves to the cause for which they gave a last full measure of devotion. - President Ronald Reagan, Remarks, Commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the Normandy, Invasion, D-day, June 6, 1984.
When men like Private Zanatta and all our allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy 40 years ago they came not as conquerors, but as liberators. When these troops swept across the French countryside and into the forests of Belgium and Luxembourg they came not to take, but to return what had been wrongly seized. When our forces marched into Germany they came not to prey on a brave and defeated people, but to nurture the seeds of democracy among those who yearned to be free again. - President Ronald Reagan, Remarks, Commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the Normandy, Invasion, D-day, June 6, 1984.
We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we may always be free. - President Ronald Reagan, Remarks, Commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the Normandy, Invasion, D-day, June 6, 1984.
So, as we look back to the terrible suffering of the Second World War and the common experience of 40 years of peace and freedom, we dedicate ourselves and our countries anew to the creation of a world in which all peoples enjoy the blessings of peace, of justice, and of freedom from oppression, want and fear; a world in which individuals are able to fulfill their responsibilities for themselves, to their families and to their communities; a world in which all nations, large and small, combine to work together for a better future for all mankind. - President Ronald Reagan, Bonn Economic Summit Political Declaration on the 40th Anniversary of the End of the Second World War, May 3, 1985.
Till next time, thanks for listening, and God bless you. - President Ronald Reagan, how he ended all of his Radio Addresses to the Nation.
TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: coldwar; conservatism; government; history; politics; quotes; reagan; ronaldreagan
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Ping away people.
1
posted on
02/08/2003 12:55:57 AM PST
by
PsyOp
To: Marine Inspector; sleavelessinseattle; 2Trievers; swarthyguy; Lazamataz; MistyCA; spetznaz; ...
A big Reagan Birthday Quote Ping!
2
posted on
02/08/2003 12:57:27 AM PST
by
PsyOp
To: PsyOp
Most excellent. Thank you.
3
posted on
02/08/2003 12:58:14 AM PST
by
Diplomat
To: PsyOp
I knew it was too soon to hit the rack.......Good On ya PsyOps !
Stay Safe !
4
posted on
02/08/2003 1:00:03 AM PST
by
Squantos
(RKBA the original version of Homeland Security .....the one proven method that works !)
To: Squantos
Well, have fun. I've been up late the last four nights putting this one together so It's bed-time for me. Night All.
5
posted on
02/08/2003 1:03:08 AM PST
by
PsyOp
To: PsyOp
A keeper....Thank you
6
posted on
02/08/2003 1:05:09 AM PST
by
The Raven
(Liberalism: The dream world called denial)
To: PsyOp
Thank You for the rememberance! President Reagan was a great icon before Hitlery's rein and still is after America's debacle of the '90's. your post is definitely saved and will be sent to many people. "Thank You" :)
7
posted on
02/08/2003 1:31:11 AM PST
by
EGPWS
To: EGPWS
Bump and Bookmarked.
8
posted on
02/08/2003 1:34:28 AM PST
by
SAMWolf
(To look into the eyes of the wolf is to see your soul)
To: PsyOp
Thank You
9
posted on
02/08/2003 1:45:32 AM PST
by
steelie
To: PsyOp
Thanks so much for posting those inspirational quotes. Ronald Reagan was the greatest man of the second half of the 20th Century, and one of the most inspirational figures in the history of the world.
I actually started crying as I read all of these amazing quotes...it brought me back in time to the wonderful 1980's when the world was sane again...if only for eight years. When I think of how much I enjoyed the 1980's and how horrible it was to watch that VERMIN Clinton tear down all of our progess in the 1990's...
10
posted on
02/08/2003 2:33:22 AM PST
by
MarkDel
To: PsyOp
Thank you for sharing these truely wise words of President Reagan. Saved them.
To: PsyOp
Bless you PsyOp...Thanks to you I have a whole anthology of your wonderful quote collections! Regards...lainde
12
posted on
02/08/2003 4:04:28 AM PST
by
lainde
Comment #13 Removed by Moderator
To: jla
Ye might want to bookmark this!
14
posted on
02/08/2003 5:04:27 AM PST
by
Happygal
To: PsyOp
For The Gipper bump
15
posted on
02/08/2003 5:23:24 AM PST
by
Dajjal
To: PsyOp
great quotes from a great man ... thanks for posting them.
16
posted on
02/08/2003 5:41:37 AM PST
by
fnord
(love is so simple ... to quote a phrase)
To: PsyOp
This was outstanding and my sincere thanks for posting the quotes.
May I impose on you a little? I had heard a quote that I attributed to Reagan but I was never able to confirm either the quote or the person. The quote referred to the advances made in mail delivery as compared to the advances in telephone service and the cost associated with each. The punch line was that the telephone company is the one who ended up being investigated.
I didn't find it among the quotes you so graciously posted. If one of your readers has knowledge of the quote or its author, I would appreciate hearing the details.
Thank you.
To: PsyOp
I greatly appreciate this. Thank you.
18
posted on
02/08/2003 6:21:30 AM PST
by
backhoe
(The 1990's will be remembered as "The Decade of Fraud(s)..." ( Clintons, Dot-Bombs, Oslo... ))
To: backhoe
I bookmarked this page...awesome quotes. I remember a few of them by heart...
"The government's attitude towards the economy can be summed up in three short phrases...If it moves, tax it; If it keeps moving, regulate...If it stops moving, subsidize."--Reaganus Maximus
"I don't want your job Mr. Carter. I want to be President."--RR
"The one sure way to make sure crime doesn't pay is to let the government run it."
"The 9 most terrifying words in the English language are "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."
"Who are communists? Communists are people who read Marx and Lenin." (reporter)'And anti-communists?' "They are the ones who understand Marx and Lenin."
To: PsyOp
Nice job, PsyOp. Bookarked.
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, said during a microphone test, August 11, 1984.
Remember how the media tried to make a big deal out of that one? Like the man was not allowed to have a sense of humor, for pete's sake. Reagan's light side was one that just let you know the man was accessible. He just plain got it.
20
posted on
02/08/2003 7:23:43 AM PST
by
Cagey
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