“We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“I didn’t leave the Democratic party, the Democratic Party left me.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“No government has ever voluntarily reduced itself in size—and that, in a way, became my theme.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Whatever his reasons, Gorbachev had the intelligence to admit Communism was not working, the courage to battle for change, and, ultimately, the wisdom to introduce the beginnings of democracy, individual freedom, and free enterprise. As I said at the Brandenburg Gate in 1987, the Soviet Union faced a choice: Either it made fundamental changes or it became obsolete. Gorbachev saw the handwriting on the Wall and opted for change.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“I've always believed that a lot of the trouble in the world would disappear if we were talking to each other instead of about each other.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“if there was any loose money lying around, the people in government would find a way to spend it. The worst sin in the bureaucracy was to give money back because it meant the bureaucracy’s budget could be reduced the following year. If at the end of the fiscal year they hadn’t spent all the money in their budget, there would be a rush to buy new office furniture, take a trip at the taxpayers’ expense, or spend the money on something else, just to assure their budget wouldn’t be smaller in the future. The idea of returning money to taxpayers once it had been collected from them had never come up before.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“We think there is a parallel between federal involvement in education and the decline in profit over recent years.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Peace is not absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means.”
―
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
“The size of the federal budget is not an appropriate barometer of social conscience or charitable concern.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“The federal government did not create the states; the states created the federal government.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“I hope we once again have reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts.”
―
Ronald Reagan
