Quotes about Ronald Reagan

50 Sourced Quotes

And because no one who works full-time in America should have to live in poverty, I am going to keep making the case that we need to raise the minimum wage because it's lower right now than it was when Ronald Reagan took office. It's time for the minimum wage to go up.

If John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan could negotiate with the Soviet Union, then surely a strong and confident America can negotiate with less powerful adversaries today.

One reporter asked me about my father... But when I asked her what she knew about Ronald Reagan's father, she looked blank.

Geraldine Ferraro

Public speaking is done in the public tongue, the national or tribal language; and the language of our tribe is the men's language. Of course women learn it. We're not dumb. If you can tell Margaret Thatcher from Ronald Reagan, or Indira Gandhi from General Somoza, by anything they say, tell me how. This is a man's world, so it talks a man's language.

Ursula K. Le Guin

I'd be surprised if Ronald Reagan doesn't run again. To us it's a second term. To him it's a double feature.

Everyone in America (according to my generalizations) is a potential millionaire waiting for his or her big break. I was astonished lately to realize that Americans are definitely believing in and planning for the future, despite the fact that they elected Ronald Reagan twice.

Here and now, I am hereby publicly challenging all of the other leading candidates to debate on the issues of the campaign. I challenge Ronald Reagan to meet me on his home grounds, the back lot of Warner Brothers. And I challenge Herbert Humphrey [sic] to debate on his home grounds. I do have some reservations about meeting George Wallace on his home grounds, but I'm willing to meet him on a neutral site in Harlem.

The longer I stay in the States, the more I understand how important it is to smile and seem like a nice guy. Like Ronald Reagan. Your image seems to count more than what you do.

Martina Navratilova

Ronald Reagan…is attempting a great breakthrough in political technology—he has been perfecting the Teflon-coated Presidency. He sees to it that nothing sticks to him.

Patricia Schroeder

The Republican Party, under Trump, is headed for a combustive breakup. Ronald Reagan envisioned a shining city on a hill. Trump represents nothing more than a thug with money.

From day one his standard operating procedure... was a blend of ignorance, amnesia, and dissembling. Like a panicky passenger lunging for a life preserver, he would, under stress, concoct almost any fact or anecdote to advance his ideological beliefs. Ronald Reagan brought to mind Will Rogers' comment that "It's not what he doesn't know that bothers me, it's what he knows for sure that just ain't so."

I was happy when I first heard Ronald Reagan was running for the presidency. I've always thought, once you're in show business you should stay in it.

Throwing Ronald Reagan out of office at the height of his popularity, with inflation and interest rates down, the economy moving and the country at peace, would have required God on the ticket and She was not available!

Geraldine Ferraro

Well, they have the education system. They have the media. They have the capitalist system. What do you think the Tides Foundation was? They infiltrate and they saw under Ronald Reagan that capitalists were not for all of this nonsense, so they infiltrated. Now, they are using failing capitalism to destroy it.

The battle for the mind of Ronald Reagan was like the trench warfare of World War I. Never have so many fought so hard for such barren terrain.

Ronald Reagan, the President who never told bad news to the American people.

Garrison Keillor

I am here to make an announcement that this Thursday, ticket counters and airplanes will fly out of Ronald Reagan Airport.

I really haven't seen this many people in one place since they took the group photographs of all the criminals and lawbreakers in the Ronald Reagan Administration.

I'm neither giving up nor giving in. I believe I'm still the fighter that Dr. King and JFK and Ronald Reagan knew. But it's a fight I must someday call a draw. I must reconcile courage and surrender in equal measure.

Charlton Heston

For too long in this society, we have celebrated unrestrained individualism over common community. For too long as a nation, we have been lulled by the anthem of self-interest. For a decade, led by Ronald Reagan, self-aggrandizement has been the full-throated cry of this society: 'I've got mine, so why don't you get yours' and 'What's in it for me?'

Ronald Reagan can't resist an appeal from defense contractors down on their luck. They ask him to spare a dime for a cup of coffee, and he gives them seven thousand dollars for a coffee maker. There wasn't a dry eye in the White House when the forgotten wealthy asked for a handout.

Geraldine Ferraro

I met Donald [Trump] in 1979 when I was sent to New York to organize Ronald Reagan's campaign for President. He and his father Fred Trump were members of the Reagan for President finance committee. We became good friends. I was invited to two of his weddings. He attended my wedding in Washington DC. He is very smart, very tough and can be very very funny. He is also very tall.

When Ronald Reagan's career in show business came to an end, he was hired to impersonate, first, a California governor and then an American president who would reduce taxes for his employers, the Southern and Western New Rich, much of whose money came from the defence industries. There is nothing unusual about this arrangement. All recent presidents have had their price-tags.

I remember when Ronald Reagan was president he said 'if the American people obeyed the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule we wouldn't have any problems.' The first time I heard him say it I thought, 'That's too simplistic.' There are complicated problems back there. But you analyze it, he's right.

Ronald Reagan wasn't qualified to be governor, let alone president.

The charm of Ronald Reagan is not just that he kept telling us screwy things, it was that he believed them all. No wonder we trusted him, he never lied to us.... His stubbornness, even defiance, in the face of facts ('stupid things,' he once called them in a memorable slip) was nothing short of splendid.... This is the man who proved that ignorance is no handicap to the presidency.

I had a soft spot in my heart for Ronald Reagan, if only because he was a sportswriter in his youth, and also because his wife gave the best head in Hollywood.

Hunter S. Thompson

Ronald Reagan - "Grandpa Caligula"; "Ronald McReagan" - No More Coccoons

Ronald Reagan makes me proud to be an American. His intelligence, capability, and Christian brotherhood are so inspiring and his way of leadership is just superb. I consider myself lucky to have been his leading lady in The Bad Man and a short subject reel and as a nation all together we are beyond fortunate to have the leadership of such fine people as the Reagan's.

On Ronald Reagan's nomination as Governor of California:

No, no. Jimmy Stewart for governor—Reagan for his best friend.