Ronald Reagan Quotes

559 Sourced Quotes

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

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

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 who are homeless, you might say, by choice.

Ronald Reagan
Politics is just like show business, you have a hell of an opening, coast for a while and then have a hell of a close.

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

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

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
Let it show on the record that when the American people cried out for economic help, Jimmy Carter took refuge behind a dictionary. Well, if it's a definition he wants, I'll give him one. A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his.

Ronald Reagan
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.

Ronald Reagan
Every honor is appropriate for the courageous Americans who made the supreme sacrifice for our Nation at Pearl Harbor and in the many battles that followed in World War II. Their sacrifice was for a cause, not for conquest; for a world that would be safe for future generations. Their devotion must never be forgotten.

Ronald Reagan
I am told that tens of thousands of prayer meetings are being held on this day; for that I am deeply grateful. We are a nation under God, and I believe God intended for us to be free. It would be fitting and good, I think, if on each inaugural day in future years it should be declared a day of prayer.

Ronald Reagan
Some years ago, the federal government declared war on poverty, and poverty won.

Ronald Reagan
The fact is, we'll never build a lasting economic recovery by going deeper into debt at a faster rate than we ever have before.

Ronald Reagan
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
Every dollar the federal government does not take from us, every decision it does not make for us, will make our economy stronger, our lives more abundant, our future more free.

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

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

Ronald Reagan
There can be no greater good than the quest for peace, and no finer purpose than the preservation of freedom.

Ronald Reagan
We don't need more politicians insisting we have deficits because you're not taxed enough. Those deficits ballooned from an economy that didn't grow enough and from 50 years of government spending too much.

Ronald Reagan
I believe with all my heart that our first priority must be world peace, and that use of force is always and only a last resort, when everything else has failed, and then only with regard to our national security.

Ronald Reagan
Right now our main effort is directed toward oxides of nitrogen which comes out of automobile tail pipe and cause the photochemical reactions which color the air a muddy brown. There is no question they are a problem in areas like L. A. where we have a more or less constant temperature inversion trapping the air. But Dr. [John] McKetta lists the findings in his field as his no. 3 shock & surprise. Nature it seems also produces oxides of nitrogen. As a matter of fact nature produces 97% of them.

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

Ronald Reagan
If you serve a child a rotten hamburger in America, federal, state, and local agencies will investigate you, summon you, close you down, whatever. But if you provide a child with a rotten education, nothing happens, except that you're liable to be given more money to do it with. Well, we've discovered that money alone isn't the answer.

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

Ronald Reagan
The decision by the seven-man majority in Roe v. Wade has so far been made to stick. But the Court's decision has by no means settled the debate. Instead, Roe v. Wade has become a continuing prod to the conscience of the nation.

Ronald Reagan
All systems are capitalist. It's just a matter of who owns and controls the capital — ancient king, dictator, or private individual. We should properly be looking at the contrast between a free market system where individuals have the right to live like kings if they have the ability to earn that right and government control of the market system such as we find today in socialist nations.

Ronald Reagan
Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don't interfere.

Ronald Reagan
You and I are told increasingly that we have to choose between a left or right, but I would like to suggest that there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down — up to a man's age-old dream; the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order — or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism, and regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.

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