Ronald Reagan Quotes

559 Sourced Quotes

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

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
Our liberties, our values, all for which America stands is safe today because brave men and women have been ready to face the fire at freedom's front. And we thank God for them.

Ronald Reagan
History shows that when the taxes of a nation approach about 20 percent of the people's income, there begins to be a lack of respect for government.... When it reaches 25 percent, there comes an increase in lawlessness.

Ronald Reagan
Freedom is one of the deepest and noblest aspirations of the human spirit.

Ronald Reagan
Law and freedom must be indivisible partners. For without law, there can be no freedom, only choas and disorder; and without freedom, law is but a cynical veneer for injustice and oppression.

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

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

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
If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and 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
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."

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

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

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

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
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
The vote on the Peacekeeper is also a vote on Geneva. Rejecting the Peacekeeper will knock the legs out from under the negotiating table. (On importance of the MX missile)

Ronald Reagan
The despicable North Korean attack in Rangoon deprived us of trusted advisers and friends. So many of those who died had won admirers in America as they studied with us or guided us with their counsel. I personally recall the wisdom and composure of Foreign Minister Lee, with whom I met in Washington just a few short months ago. To the families and countrymen of all those who were lost, America expresses its deep sorrow.

Ronald Reagan
Mankind's journey into space, like every great voyage of discovery, will become part of our unending journey of liberation. In the limitless reaches of space, we will find liberation from tyranny, from scarcity, from ignorance and from war. We will find the means to protect this Earth and to nurture every human life, and to explore the universe....This is our mission, this is our destiny.

Ronald Reagan
The Bible can touch our hearts, order our minds, refresh our souls.

Ronald Reagan
If we've learned any lessons during the past few decades, perhaps the most important is that preservation of our environment is not a partisan challenge; it's common sense. Our physical health, our social happiness, and our economic well-being will be sustained only by all of us working in partnership as thoughtful, effective stewards of our natural resources.

Ronald Reagan
[Andrew Jackson] was actually 70 years old when he left the White House

Ronald Reagan