“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
“Status quo, you know, is Latin for 'the mess we're in'.”
―
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
“Freedom is one of the deepest and noblest aspirations of the human spirit.”
―
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
“Our government needs the church, because only those humble enough to admit they're sinners can bring democracy the tolerance it requires to survive”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Trees cause more pollution than automobiles do.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Here you discover that so long as books are kept open, then minds can never be closed.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Jefferson repeatedly said that the best government was the smallest government, that “governments are not the masters of the people, but the servants of the people governed.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“An America that is militarily and economically strong is not enough. The world must see an America that is morally strong with a creed and a vision. This is what has led us to dare and achieve. For us, values count. Speech, New York City, December 12, 1983”
―
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
“Tax increases don’t eliminate deficits they increase govt. spending.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“If we love our country, we should also love our countrymen. ”
―
Ronald Reagan
“But Nancy is right—Presidents don’t have vacations—they just have a change of scenery”
―
Ronald Reagan
