Ronald Reagan Quotes

559 Sourced Quotes

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
Conservatives were brought up to hate deficits and justifiably so. We've long thought there are two things in Washington that are unbalanced - the budget and the liberals.

Ronald Reagan
We're entering our third century now, but it's wrong to judge our nation by its years. The calendar can't measure America because we were meant to be an endless experiment in freedom, with no limits to our reaches, no boundaries to what we can do, no end point to our hopes.

Ronald Reagan
The societies which have achieved the most spectacular broad-based economic progress in the shortest period of time are not the most tightly controlled, not necessarily the biggest in size, or the wealthiest in natural resources. No, what unites them all is their willingness to believe in the magic of the marketplace.

Ronald Reagan
Poland is at the center of European civilization. It has contributed mightily to that civilization. It is doing so today by being magnificently unreconciled to oppression. Poland's struggle to be Poland and to secure the basic rights we often take for granted, demonstrates why we dare not take those rights for granted.

Ronald Reagan
They don't worship at the altar of forced busing and mandatory quotas. They don't believe you can remedy past discrimination by mandating new discrimination. (Defending his nominees for Civil Rights Commission)

Ronald Reagan
The WPA was one of the most productive elements of FDR's alphabet soup of agencies because it put people to work building roads, bridges, and other projects... It gave men and women a chance to make some money along with the satisfaction of knowing they earned it.

Ronald Reagan
Those concerns of a national character-such as air and water pollution that do not respect state boundaries, or the national transportation system, or efforts to safeguard your civil liberties-must, of course, be handled on the national level.

Ronald Reagan
We must remove government's smothering hand from where it does harm; we must seek to revitalize the proper functions of government. We do these things to set loose again the energy and the ingenuity of the American people. We do these things to reinvigorate those social and economic institutions which serve as a buffer and a bridge between the individual and the state - and which remain the real source of our progress as a people.

Ronald Reagan
When you start talking about government as 'we' instead of 'they,' you have been in office too long.

Ronald Reagan
America has not been a story or a byword. That small community of Pilgrims prospered and, driven by the dreams and, yes, by the ideas of the Founding Fathers, went on to become a beacon to all the oppressed and poor of the world.

Ronald Reagan
The First Continental Congress made its first act a prayer, the beginning of a great tradition. We have then a lesson from the founders of our land. That lesson is clear: That in the winning of freedom and in the living of life, the first step is prayer.

Ronald Reagan
Let us thank God for life and the blessings He's put before us. High among them are our families, our freedom, and the opportunities of a new year.

Ronald Reagan
'Trust-me' government asks that we concentrate our hopes and dreams on one man, that we trust him to do what's best for us. My view of government places trust not in one person or one party, but in those values that transcend persons and parties.

Ronald Reagan
We will remain steady. We will pursue every avenue in the search for peace and stability.

Ronald Reagan
Let us remember with devotion that the flag we love and honor is the flag of freedom that flew in victory at Yorktown, the flag the United States Marines raised on Mount Suribachi, the flag Francis Scott Key saw by the dawn's early light. Long may it wave.

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

Ronald Reagan
A nation's greatness is measured not just by its gross national product or military power, but by the strength of its devotion to the principles and values that bind its people and define their character.

Ronald Reagan
We must be cautious in claiming God is on our side. I think the real question we must answer is, are we on His side?

Ronald Reagan
A strong nation is one that is loved by its people and, as Edmund Burke put it, for a country to be loved it ought to be lovely.

Ronald Reagan