“In a country ruled by laws, it seemed to me that nothing was more important than removing politics from the process of choosing judges. During previous administrations in California, governors had often handed out judgeships to friends and cronies like prizes at a company picnic. Not only had this produced a lot of inferior judges, it had placed a number of partisans on the bench who believed that putting on the black robes of a judge gave them a license to rewrite the laws. I wanted judges who would interpret the Constitution, not rewrite it.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Heroes may not be braver than anyone else. They're just braver 5 minutes longer.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“At my first press conference I was asked whether we could trust the Soviet Union, and I said that the answer to that question could be found in the writings of Soviet leaders: It had always been their philosophy that it was moral to lie or cheat for the purpose of advancing Communism.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Welfare's purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“The government is like a baby's
alimentary canal, with a happy
appetite at one end and no
responsibility at the other.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“aren’t lazy or unwilling to work: they just don’t know how to free themselves from the welfare security blanket.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“I've heard that hard work never killed anyone, but I say why take the chance?”
―
Ronald Reagan
“I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“In this springtime of hope, some lights seem eternal; America's is.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“A nation that cannot control its borders is not a nation.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“One of the greatest of liberals, Thomas Jefferson, the founder of the Democratic Party, once remarked: “A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned—this is the sum of good government.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“I was raised to believe that God has a plan for everyone and that seemingly random twists of fate are all a part of His plan. My mother—a small woman with auburn hair and a sense of optimism that ran as deep as the cosmos—told me that everything in life happened for a purpose. She said all things were part of God’s Plan, even the most disheartening setbacks, and in the end, everything worked out for the best. If something went wrong, she said, you didn’t let it get you down: You stepped away from it, stepped over it, and moved on. Later on, she added, something good will happen and you’ll find yourself thinking—“If I hadn’t had that problem back then, then this better thing that did happen wouldn’t have happened to me.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Let us not forget who we are. Drug abuse is a repudiation of everything America is.”
―
Ronald Reagan
"I do not believe in taking away the right of the citizen for sporting, for hunting and so forth, or for home defense. But I do believe that an AK-47, a machine gun, is not a sporting weapon or needed for defense of a home.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“We think there is a parallel between federal involvement in education and the decline in profit over recent years.”
―
Ronald Reagan
