“Government is like a baby: an alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“I'm no linguist, but I have been told that in the Russian language, there isn't even a word for freedom.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“If there's one observation that rings true in today's changing world, it is that freedom and peace go hand in hand.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“I don't believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing.”
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Ronald Reagan
“Doing for people what they can, and ought to do for themselves, is a dangerous experiment,” the great labor leader Samuel Gompers said. “In the last analysis, the welfare of the workers depends on their own initiative.” The classic “liberal” believed individuals should be masters of their own destiny and the least government is the best government; these are precepts of freedom and self-reliance that are at the root of the American way and the American spirit.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“They don't subscribe to our sense of morality; they don't believe in an afterlife; they don't believe in a God or religion. And the only morality they recognize, therefore, is what will advance the cause or socialism.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“These were eye-opening years for me. When I’d come back to Warner Brothers after the war, I’d shared the orthodox liberal view that Communists—if there really were any—were liberals who were temporarily off track, and whatever they were, they didn’t pose much of a threat to me or anyone. I heard whispers that Moscow wanted to infiltrate the world’s most powerful medium of entertainment, but I’d passed them off as irrational and emotional red baiting. Now I knew from firsthand experience how Communists used lies, deceit, violence, or any other tactic that suited them to advance the cause of Soviet expansionism. I knew from the experience of hand-to-hand combat that America faced no more insidious or evil threat than that of Communism.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“aren’t lazy or unwilling to work: they just don’t know how to free themselves from the welfare security blanket.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“At my first press conference I was asked whether we could trust the Soviet Union, and I said that the answer to that question could be found in the writings of Soviet leaders: It had always been their philosophy that it was moral to lie or cheat for the purpose of advancing Communism.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“These young Americans sent a message to terrorists everywhere. . . . You can run but you can't hide.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“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.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“While I take inspiration from the past, like most Americans, I live for the future.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“I have wondered at times about what the Ten Commandment’s would have looked like if Moses had run them through the U.S. Congress.”
―
Ronald Reagan
