Ronald Reagan Quotes

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

I have always thought of government as a kind of organism with an insatiable appetite for money, whose natural state is to grow forever unless you do something to starve it.

We desire peace. But peace is a goal, not a policy. Lasting peace is what we hope for at the end of our journey. It doesn't describe the steps we must take nor the paths we should follow to reach that goal.

Balancing your budget is like protecting your virtue. You have to learn when to say no.

Without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure.

I don't know what I expected, but my first morning in the Oval Office had a surprising ring of familiarity to it. It reminded me a lot of my job as governor.

Our government needs the church, because only those humble enough to admit they're sinners can bring democracy the tolerance it requires to survive

I am very proud to be called a pig. It stands for pride, integrity and guts.

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

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

I remain California-bound

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

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

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

You can achieve anything in politics provided that you let someone else take the credit.

What has happened to the dreams of the United Nations' founders? What has happened to the spirit which created the United Nations? The answer is clear: Governments got in the way of the dreams of the people.

Anyone who seeks success or greatness should first forget about both and seek only the truth. The rest will follow.

I was 21 and looking for work in 1932, one of the worst years of the Great Depression. And I can remember one bleak night in the thirties when my father learned on Christmas Eve that he'd lost his job. To be young in my generation was to feel that your future had been mortgaged out from under you, and that's a tragic mistake we must never allow our leaders to make again.

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. We believed then and now there are no limits to growth and human progress when men and women are free to follow their dreams.

Constructive trade, the two-way exchange of goods and services, is the most efficient and logical way for each nation . . . to build a stable prosperity, a prosperity based not on aid, but on mutually beneficial economic contacts.

. . . I hope that when you're my age, you'll be able to say as I have been able to say: We lived in freedom, we lived lives that were a statement, not an apology.

We think there is a parallel between federal involvement in education and the decline in profit over recent years.

The Congress of the United States, in recognition of the unique contribution of the Bible in shaping the history and character of this Nation, and so many of its citizens, has by Senate Joint Resolution 165 authorized and requested the President to designate the year 1983 as the 'Year of the Bible.'

Ours was the first revolution in the history of mankind that truly reversed the course of government, and with three little words: 'We the people.' 'We the people' tell the government what to do, it doesn't tell us. 'We the people' are the driver, the government is the car. And we decide where it should go, and by what route, and how fast. Almost all the world's constitutions are documents in which governments tell the people what their privileges are. Our Constitution is a document in which 'We the people' tell the government what it is allowed to do. 'We the people' are free.

When the lives of the unborn are snuffed out, they often feel pain, pain that is long and agonizing.

Democracy is not a fragile flower; still it needs cultivating.

I told you once that [our marriage] was like an adolescent's dream of what marriage should be like. That hasn't changed.

Love your country, not for her power or wealth, but for her selflessness and her idealism.

Only when the human spirit is allowed to invent and create, only when individuals are given a personal stake in deciding economic policies and benefiting from their success - only then can societies remain economically alive, dynamic, prosperous, progressive and free.

I don't believe in a government that protects us from ourselves.

There can be no security anywhere in the free world if there is no fiscal and economic stability within the United States.

Governments don't control things. A government can't control the economy without controlling people.

If there's one thing the American people aren't lacking, it is courage.

We may be the generation that sees Armageddon.

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

It's time that we recognized that ours was in truth a noble cause.

In an atmosphere of liberty, artists and patrons are free to think the unthinkable and create the audacious; they are free to make both horrendous mistakes and glorious celebrations.

People are tired of wasteful government programs and welfare chiselers, and they are angry about the constant spiral of taxes and government regulations, arrogant bureaucrats, and public officials who think all of mankind's problems can be solved by throwing the taxpayers dollars at them.

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

The economic welfare of all our people must ultimately stem not from government programs, but from the wealth created by a vigorous private sector.

There is no love like a mother’s - she who carries the child that God knits in the womb, she who nourishes and guides, she who teaches and inspires, she who gives of her heart and soul and self for the good and the happiness of her children and her family.

Our country and state have a special obligation to work toward the stabilization of our own population so as to credibly lead other parts of the world toward population stabilization.

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

Here's my strategy on the Cold War: we win, they lose.

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

I wasn't a great communicator, but I communicated great things, and they didn't spring full-bloom from my brow - they came from the heart of a great nation.

Throughout our history Americans have put their faith in God and no one can doubt that we have been blessed for it. The earliest settlers of this land came came in search of religious freedom. Landing on a desolate shoreline, they established a spiritual foundation that has served us ever since.

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