“There probably isn’t any undertaking on earth short of assuring the national security that can’t be handled more efficiently by the forces of private enterprise than by the federal government.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Heroes may not be braver than anyone else. They're just braver 5 minutes longer.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.”
―
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
“Nothing lasts longer than a temporary government program.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Great things can be accomplished, when it doesnt matter who gets the credit.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Governments tend not to solve problems, only to rearrange them.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“I think my political transformation began with my exposure to the business-as-usual attitude of many civil service bureaucrats during the war; then came the attempted Communist take-over of the picture business, which a lot of my liberal friends refused to admit ever happened; next, I had a brief experience living in a country that promised the kind of womb-to-tomb utopian benevolence a lot of these liberal friends wanted to bring to America. In 1949, I spent four months in England filming The Hasty Heart while the Labor Party was in power. I saw firsthand how the welfare state sapped incentive to work from many people in a wonderful and dynamic country.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“The press is dying to paint me as now trying to undo the New Deal. I remind them I voted for F.D.R. 4 times. I’m trying to undo the “Great Society.” It was L.B.J.’s war on poverty that led to our present mess.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions tell me that's true, but the facts and evidence tell me it is not.”
―
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
“I have left orders to be awakened at any time during national emergency, even if I'm in a cabinet meeting.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“No people in all history paid a higher price for freedom. And no people have done so much to advance the dignity of man. We are called materialistic. May be so…but our materialism has made our children the biggest, tallest, most handsome, and intelligent generations of Americans yet. They will live longer with fewer illnesses, learn more, see more of the world, and have more success in realizing their personal dreams and ambitions than any other people in any other period of our history - because of our materialism…I think on our side of civilization and on the other side is the law of the jungle…We all have to recognize that this country has been handed the responsibility, greater than any nation, to preserve some 6000 years of civilization against the barbarians.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Unemployment insurance is a pre-paid vacation for freeloaders.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“If politics were a musical, it would be "Promises, Promises"
―
Ronald Reagan
