Ronald Reagan Quotes

“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

The miracle of life is given by One greater than ourselves, but once given, each life is ours to nurture and preserve, to foster, not only for today's world but for a better one to come. There is no purpose more noble than for us to sustain and celebrate life in a turbulent world, and that is what we must do now. We have no higher duty, no greater cause as humans. Life and the preservation of freedom to live it in dignity is what we are on this Earth to do. Everything we work to achieve must seek that end so that some day our prime ministers, our premiers, our presidents, and our general secretaries will talk not of war and peace, but only of peace.

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

“Why should we subsidize intellectual curiosity?”

— Ronald Reagan

“They had that special grace, that special spirit that says, 'Give me a challenge and I'll meet it with joy. on Challenger disaster”

— Ronald Reagan

“Trees cause more pollution than automobiles do.”

— 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

“Morality in the long run aligned with strategy.”

— Ronald Reagan

“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.”

— Ronald Reagan

The full consequences of a default or even the serious prospect of default by the United States are impossible to predict and awesome to contemplate. Denigration of the full faith and credit of the United States would have substantial effects on the domestic financial markets and on the value of the dollar in exchange markets. The Nation can ill afford to allow such a result. The risks, the cost, the disruptions, and the incalculable damage lead me to but one conclusion: the Senate must pass this legislation before the Congress adjourns.

— Ronald Reagan

“I've been told that some members of Congress disagree with my tax cut proposal. Well, you know it's been said that taxation is the art of plucking feathers without killing the bird. It's time they realized the bird just doesn't have any feathers left.”

— Ronald Reagan

“[A woman waiting for him in the Kremlin asked Gobachev] "Was communism invented by a politician or a scientist?" [He replied] "Well, a politician." She said, "That explains it. The scientist would have tried it on mice first."”

— Ronald Reagan

“Either you will control your government, or government will control you.”

— Ronald Reagan

“Freedom is not the sole prerogative of a chosen few, but the universal right of all God's children.”

— Ronald Reagan

“Extreme taxation, excessive controls, oppressive government competition with business, frustrated minorities and forgotten Americans are not the products of free enterprise. They are the residue of centralized bureaucracy, of government by a self-anointed elite.”

— Ronald Reagan

“May each of you have the heart to conceive, the understanding to direct, and the hand to execute works that will leave the world a little better for your having been here.”

— Ronald Reagan

“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 conflicting directly with those of the political order. But the crisis is happening not in the ... West, but in the home of Marxism-Leninism, the Soviet Union. It is the Soviet Union that runs against the tide of history by denying human freedom and human dignity to its citizens.”

— Ronald Reagan

“In a world wracked by hatred, economic crisis, and political tension, America remains mankind's best hope.”

— Ronald Reagan

I notice that all of the people who support abortion are already born.

— Ronald Reagan

Together, we'll build a far better future for America
a future of growth, opportunity, and security, anchored by the values of a people who are confident, compassionate, and whose heart is good.

— Ronald Reagan

“Fellow Americans, our duty is before us tonight. Let us go forward, determined to serve selflessly a vision of man with God, government for people, and humanity at peace. For it is now our task to tend and preserve, through the darkest and coldest nights, that "sacred fire of liberty" that President Washington spoke of two centuries ago, a fire that tonight remains a beacon to all oppressed of the world, shining forth from this kindly, pleasant, greening land we call America.”

— Ronald Reagan

“So in your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals, I urge you to beware the temptation of pride - the temptation blithely to declare yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong, good and evil.”

— Ronald Reagan

The American Petroleum Institute filed suit against the EPA [and] charged that the agency was suppressing a scientific study for fear it might be misinterpreted ... The suppressed study reveals that 80 percent of air pollution comes not from chimneys and auto exhaust pipes, but from plants and trees.

— Ronald Reagan

“We cannot diminish the value of one category of human life
the unborn
without diminishing the value of all human life ... there is no cause more important.”

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

“Let us ask ourselves; "What kind of people do we think we are?"”

— Ronald Reagan

“Ending inflation means freeing all Americans from the terror of runaway living costs. ... 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 ... 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.”

— Ronald Reagan

“I'm spending more time at this library in four days than I did at the Eureka College Library in four years.”

— Ronald Reagan

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

— Ronald Reagan

Excellence does not begin in Washington.

— Ronald Reagan

It should be the right of the individual to decide whether he wants to belong to a union.

— Ronald Reagan

Have we the courage and the will to face up to the immorality and discrimination of the progressive tax, and demand a return to traditional proportionate taxation? ... Today in our country the tax collector's share is 37 cents of every dollar earned. Freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp.

— Ronald Reagan

“I am not a scientist.”

— Ronald Reagan

To this day, America is still the abiding alternative to tyranny. This is our purpose in the world, nothing more and nothing less.

— Ronald Reagan

“They've done away with those committees. That shows the success of what the Soviets were able to do in this country.”

— Ronald Reagan

Today a newcomer to the state is automatically eligible for our many aid programs the moment he crosses the border.

— Ronald Reagan

How could an actor become president?

— Ronald Reagan

“Professional politicians like to talk about the value of experience in government. Nuts! The only experience you gain in politics is how to be political.”

— Ronald Reagan

“You can never underestimate the ability of the Democrats to wet their finger and hold it in the wind.”

— Ronald Reagan

“With all this talk about the supposed strain in relations [with the Soviet Union], there is an inference that somehow it is our fault. But we didn't kill Russian civilians by shooting down a civilian airplane. We didn't attempt to conquer an adjacent country to ours. We didn't walk out on negotiations and refuse to give a date for when we would resume.”

— Ronald Reagan

“May every day be a new beginning, and every dawn bring us closer to that shining city upon a hill.”

— Ronald Reagan

“The pursuit of science, the study of the great works, the value of free inquiry, in short, the very idea of living the life of the mind - yes, these formative and abiding principles of higher education in America had their first and firmest advocate, and their greatest embodiment, in a tall, fair-headed, friendly man who watched this university take form from the mountainside where he lived, the university whose founding he called a crowning achievement to along and well-spent life.”

— Ronald Reagan

“The things that unite us-America's past of which we are so proud, our hopes and aspirations for the future of the world and this much loved country-these things far outweigh what little divides us.”

— Ronald Reagan

“We will never disarm any American who seeks to protect his or her family from fear and harm.”

— Ronald Reagan

“I would like to dissolve the $10 billion national Department of Education created by President Carter and turn schools back to the local school districts, where we built the greatest public school system the world has ever seen. I think I can make a case that the decline in the quality of public education began when federal aid became federal interference.”

— Ronald Reagan

“Labor force needs and economic conditions are disregarded in our policies. Many aspects of our current policies and procedures are patently wrong. For example, legal immigration has almost no link to U.S. employment needs or economic conditions.”

— Ronald Reagan

“Through the history of our nation, Americans have always extended their hands in gestures of assistance.”

— Ronald Reagan

“Our country is great because it is built on principles of self-reliance, opportunity, innovation, and compassion for others.”

— Ronald Reagan

“A university is a place where ancient tradition thrives alongside the most revolutionary ideas. Perhaps as no other institution, a university is simultaneously committed to the day before yesterday and the day after tomorrow.”

— Ronald Reagan

Well, I think there has to be some (gun) control.

— Ronald Reagan