More Ronald Reagan quotes

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

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

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

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

I call upon the scientific community in our country, those who gave us nuclear weapons, to turn their great talents now to the cause of mankind and world peace: to give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete.
Ronald Reagan

How do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin.
Ronald Reagan

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

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

I've never been able to understand why a Republican contributor is a 'fat cat' and a Democratic contributor of the same amount of money is a 'public-spirited philanthropist'.
Ronald Reagan

If the federal government had been around when the Creator was putting His hand to this state, Indiana wouldn't be here. It'd still be waiting for an environmental impact statement.
Ronald Reagan

If the Soviet Union let another political party come into existence, they would still be a one-party state, because everybody would join the other party.
Ronald Reagan

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let us be sure that those who come after will say of us in our time, that in our time we did everything that could be done. We finished the race; we kept them free; we kept the faith.
Ronald Reagan

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

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

Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
Ronald Reagan

No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!
Ronald Reagan

Man is not free unless government is limited.
Ronald Reagan

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

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

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

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

One picture is worth 1,000 denials.
Ronald Reagan

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

People do not make wars; governments do.
Ronald Reagan

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

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

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

Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don't interfere as long as the policy you've decided upon is being carried out.
Ronald Reagan

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thomas Jefferson once said, 'We should never judge a president by his age, only by his works.' And ever since he told me that, I stopped worrying.
Ronald Reagan

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, I did not take the oath I have just taken with the intention of presiding over the dissolution of the world's strongest economy.
Ronald Reagan

To sit back hoping that someday, some way, someone will make things right is to go on feeding the crocodile, hoping he will eat you last - but eat you he will.
Ronald Reagan

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

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

Trust, but verify.
Ronald Reagan

Unemployment insurance is a pre-paid vacation for freeloaders.
Ronald Reagan

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

We are never defeated unless we give up on God.
Ronald Reagan

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

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

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

We might come closer to balancing the Budget if all of us lived closer to the Commandments and the Golden Rule.
Ronald Reagan
 
We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.
Ronald Reagan

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

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

What we have found in this country, and maybe we're more aware of it now, is one problem that we've had, even in the best of times, and that is the people who are sleeping on the grates, the homeless, you might say, by choice.
Ronald Reagan

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

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

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

Without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure.
Ronald Reagan

You know, if I listened to Michael Dukakis long enough, I would be convinced we're in an economic downturn and people are homeless and going without food and medical attention and that we've got to do something about the unemployed.
Ronald Reagan

A people free to choose will always choose peace.
Ronald Reagan

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

Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have.
Ronald Reagan

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

Approximately 80% of our air pollution stems from hydrocarbons released by vegetation, so let's not go overboard in setting and enforcing tough emission standards from man-made sources.
Ronald Reagan

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

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

Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty.
Ronald Reagan

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

Don't be afraid to see what you see.
Ronald Reagan

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

Facts are stubborn things.
Ronald Reagan

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.
Ronald Reagan

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

Government always finds a need for whatever money it gets.
Ronald Reagan

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.
Ronald Reagan

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