“The first rule of a bureaucracy is to protect the bureaucracy. If the people running the welfare program had let their clientele find other ways of making a living, that would have reduced their importance and their budget.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“If politics were a musical, it would be "Promises, Promises"
―
Ronald Reagan
“There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don't care who gets the credit.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream -- the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order --or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“It is up to us in our time to choose, and choose wisely, between the hard but necessary task of preserving peace and freedom, and the temptation to ignore our duty and blindly hope for the best while the enemies of freedom grow stronger day by day.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Freedom is one of the deepest and noblest aspirations of the human spirit.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Before I refuse to take your questions, I have an opening statement. ”
―
Ronald Reagan
“If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth.”
―
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
“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
“The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant. It’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“The key for any speaker is to establish his own point of view for the audience, so they can see the game through his eyes.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“America is, and always will be, a shining city on a hill.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Within the covers of the Bible are the answers for all the problems men face.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“We do not deny any nation's legitimate interest in security. But protecting the security of one nation by robbing another of its national independence and national traditions is not legitimate. In the long run, it is not even secure.”
―
Ronald Reagan
