“This idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except the sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man’s relation to man. This is the issue of this election: whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. You and I are told increasingly that we have to choose between a left or right. There is only an up or down: up to man’s age-old dream—the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order—or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. And regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course. In this vote-harvesting time they use terms like the “Great Society,” or as we were told a few days ago by the president, we must accept a “greater government activity in the affairs of the people.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Read this morning of a black family—husband and wife both work in govt. printing office. They live in a nice house near U. of Maryland. They have been harassed and even had a cross burned on their lawn. It was all on the front page of the “Post.” I told Mike & Jim I’d like to call on them. We cleared the last part of the afternoon schedule & Nancy & I went calling. They were a very nice couple with a 4 year old daughter—grandma (a most gracious lady) lived with them. Their home was very nice & tastefully furnished. They were very nice about our coming & expressed their thanks. The whole neighborhood was lining the street—most of them cheering and applauding us. I hope we did some good. There is no place in this land for the hate-mongers & bigots.”
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Ronald Reagan
“No government has ever voluntarily reduced itself in size—and that, in a way, became my theme.”
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Ronald Reagan
“I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world.”
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Ronald Reagan
“They had that special grace, that special spirit that says, 'Give me a challenge and I'll meet it with joy." on Challenger disaster”
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Ronald Reagan
“As smart as he was, though, I suspect even FDR didn’t realize that once you created a bureaucracy, it took on a life of its own. It was almost impossible to close down a bureaucracy once it had been created.”
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Ronald Reagan
“America will never be whole as long as the right to life granted by our Creator is denied to the unborn.”
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Ronald Reagan
“Welfare's purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence.”
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Ronald Reagan
“Inflation is as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber and as deadly as a hit man.”
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Ronald Reagan
“Government is like a baby: an alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.”
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Ronald Reagan
“I've heard that hard work never killed anyone, but I say why take the chance?”
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Ronald Reagan
“The American dream is not that every man must be level with every other man. The American dream is that every man must be free to become whatever God intends he should become.”
―
Ronald Reagan
