“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.”

“Status quo, you know, is Latin for 'the mess we're in'.”

“Here you discover that so long as books are kept open, then minds can never be closed.”

“My philosophy of life is that if we make up our mind what we are going to make of our lives, then work hard toward that goal, we never lose – somehow we win out.”

“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.”

“The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a government program.”

“A people free to choose will always choose peace. ”

“If there's one observation that rings true in today's changing world, it is that freedom and peace go hand in hand.”

“Heroes may not be braver than anyone else. They're just braver 5 minutes longer.”

“If we ever forget that we're one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under."

“We think there is a parallel between federal involvement in education and the decline in profit over recent years.”

“I know in my heart that man is good, that what is right will always eventually triumph, and there is purpose and worth to each and every life.”

“Trust, but verify.”

“We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace.”

“Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.”