“I heard one presidential candidate say that what this country needed was a president for the nineties. I was set to run again. I thought he said a president IN his nineties.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Status quo, you know, is Latin for 'the mess we're in'.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“No people in all history paid a higher price for freedom. And no people have done so much to advance the dignity of man. We are called materialistic. May be so…but our materialism has made our children the biggest, tallest, most handsome, and intelligent generations of Americans yet. They will live longer with fewer illnesses, learn more, see more of the world, and have more success in realizing their personal dreams and ambitions than any other people in any other period of our history - because of our materialism…I think on our side of civilization and on the other side is the law of the jungle…We all have to recognize that this country has been handed the responsibility, greater than any nation, to preserve some 6000 years of civilization against the barbarians.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty.”
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Ronald Reagan
“The most dangerous myth is the demagoguery that business can be made to pay a larger share, thus relieving the individual. Politicians preaching this are either deliberately dishonest, or economically illiterate, and either one should scare us. Business doesn't pay taxes, and who better than business to make this message known? Only people pay taxes, and people pay as consumers every tax that is assessed against a business. Begin with the food and fiber raised in the farm, to the ore drilled in a mine, to the oil and gas from out of the ground, whatever it may be -- through the processing, through the manufacturing, on out to the retailer's license. If the tax cannot be included in the price of the product, no one along that line can stay in business.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“For more than five years, I’d made little progress with my efforts at quiet diplomacy—for one thing, the Soviet leaders kept dying on me.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“No government has ever voluntarily reduced itself in size—and that, in a way, became my theme.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“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.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“When you can't make them see the light, make them feel the heat.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Preparing for the future must begin, as always, with our children. We need to set for them new and more rigorous goals.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“My philosophy of life is that if we make up our mind what we are going to make of our lives, then work hard toward that goal, we never lose – somehow we win out.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“I was not a great communicator, but I communicated great things.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“If we ever forget that we're one nation under God, then we will be one nation gone under.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“We are a nation that has a government--not the other way around.”
―
Ronald Reagan
