“Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book.”

“Christmas can be celebrated in the school room with pine trees, tinsel and reindeers, but there must be no mention of the man whose birthday is being celebrated. One wonders how a teacher would answer if a student asked why it was called Christmas.”

“If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth.”

“Government always finds a need for whatever money it gets.

“I think growing up in a small town is a good foundation for anyone who decides to enter politics. You get to know people as individuals, not as blocs or members of special interest groups.”

“I don't believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing.”

“the Polish people be allowed to have a voice in the kind of govt. they want. Under the Yalta Pact the Soviets agreed they & others would be allowed to do this. The Soviets have never honored that promise.”

“I don't believe in a government that protects us from ourselves.”

“But Nancy is right—Presidents don’t have vacations—they just have a change of scenery”

“Government does not solve problems. It subsidizes them.”

“Before I refuse to take your questions, I have an opening statement. ” 

“You can’t tax business. Business doesn’t pay taxes. It collects taxes.”

“The vast majority of students at the university only wanted an education. But for months they were robbed of it by the rampaging of a minority; meanwhile, many moderate voices on the faculty were silenced by the intimidation of left-wing professors whose vision of freedom of speech was limited to speech about things they agreed with.”

“My parents constantly drummed into me the importance of judging people as individuals. There was no more grievous sin at our household than a racial slur or other evidence of religious or racial intolerance. A lot of it, I think, was because my dad had learned what discrimination was like firsthand. He’d grown up in an era when some stores still had signs at their door saying, NO DOGS OR IRISHMEN ALLOWED. When my brother and I were growing up, there were still ugly tumors of racial bigotry in much of America, including the corner of Illinois where we lived. At our one local movie theater, blacks and whites had to sit apart—the blacks in the balcony. My mother and father urged my brother and me to bring home our black playmates, to consider them equals, and to respect the religious views of our friends, whatever they were. My brother’s best friend was black, and when they went to the movies, Neil sat with him in the balcony. My mother always taught us: “Treat thy neighbor as you would want your neighbor to treat you,” and “Judge everyone by how they act, not what they are.” Once my father checked into a hotel during a shoe-selling trip and a clerk told him: “You’ll like it here, Mr. Reagan, we don’t permit a Jew in the place.” My father, who told us the story later, said he looked at the clerk angrily and picked up his suitcase and left. “I’m a Catholic,” he said. “If it’s come to the point where you won’t take Jews, then some day you won’t take me either.” Because it was the only hotel in town, he spent the night in his car during a winter blizzard and I think it may have led to his first heart attack.”

“It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.”