“If we ever forget that we're one nation under God, then we will be one nation gone under.”

“My parents constantly drummed into me the importance of judging people as individuals. There was no more grievous sin at our household than a racial slur or other evidence of religious or racial intolerance. A lot of it, I think, was because my dad had learned what discrimination was like firsthand. He’d grown up in an era when some stores still had signs at their door saying, NO DOGS OR IRISHMEN ALLOWED. When my brother and I were growing up, there were still ugly tumors of racial bigotry in much of America, including the corner of Illinois where we lived. At our one local movie theater, blacks and whites had to sit apart—the blacks in the balcony. My mother and father urged my brother and me to bring home our black playmates, to consider them equals, and to respect the religious views of our friends, whatever they were. My brother’s best friend was black, and when they went to the movies, Neil sat with him in the balcony. My mother always taught us: “Treat thy neighbor as you would want your neighbor to treat you,” and “Judge everyone by how they act, not what they are.” Once my father checked into a hotel during a shoe-selling trip and a clerk told him: “You’ll like it here, Mr. Reagan, we don’t permit a Jew in the place.” My father, who told us the story later, said he looked at the clerk angrily and picked up his suitcase and left. “I’m a Catholic,” he said. “If it’s come to the point where you won’t take Jews, then some day you won’t take me either.” Because it was the only hotel in town, he spent the night in his car during a winter blizzard and I think it may have led to his first heart attack.”

“Deficits, as I’ve often said, aren’t caused by too little taxing, they are caused by too much spending. Presidents don’t create deficits, Congress does. Presidents can’t appropriate a dollar of taxpayers’ money; only congressmen can—and Congress is susceptible to all sorts of influences that have nothing to do with good government.”

“We should measure welfare's success by how many people leave welfare, not by how many are added.”

“America will never be whole as long as the right to life granted by our Creator is denied to the unborn.”

“A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions tell me that's true, but the facts and evidence tell me it is not.”

“The glass is not half empty; it is half full.”

“The following morning, when I met for breakfast with the staff, we kept noisy music playing loudly on a tape recorder as a precaution against hidden microphones. It was a good thing we did: Later, we found five listening devices hidden in our rooms in the guesthouse. One staffer unscrewed a plate over the light switch in his room, discovered a bug, removed it, and took it home as a souvenir.”

“I was not a great communicator, but I communicated great things.”

“Our natural, inalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation from government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment.”

“Our government needs the church, because only those humble enough to admit they're sinners can bring democracy the tolerance it requires to survive”

“Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty”

“The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.”

“Welfare's purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence.”

“History is made by men and women of vision and courage. Tonight freedom is on the march.”