“Welfare's purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“The first rule of a bureaucracy is to protect the bureaucracy. If the people running the welfare program had let their clientele find other ways of making a living, that would have reduced their importance and their budget.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“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.”
―
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
“The problem is not that people are taxed too little, the problem is that government spends too much.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Live simply, love generously, care deeply, speak kindly, leave the rest to God.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“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.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you I just signed legislation which outlaws Russia forever. The bombing begins in five minutes.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant. It’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“I hope when you are my age, you’ll be able to say - as I have been able to say: We lived in freedom. Our lives were a statement, not an apology.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream -- the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order --or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Democracy triumphed in the cold war because it was a battle of values—between one system that gave preeminence to the state and another that gave preeminence to the individual and freedom. Not long ago, I was told about an incident that illustrated this difference: An American scholar, on his way to the airport before a flight to the Soviet Union, got into a conversation with his cab driver, a young man who said that he was still getting his education. The scholar asked, “When you finish your schooling, what do you want to be, what do you want to do?” The young man answered, “I haven’t decided yet.” After the scholar arrived at the airport in Moscow, his cab driver was also a young man who happened to mention he was still getting his education, and the scholar, who spoke Russian, asked, “When you finish your schooling, what do you want to be, what do you want to do?” The young man answered: “They haven’t told me yet.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“There can be no freedom without order, and there is no order without virtue. Now, that’s a simple enough formulation, but it’s an insight found not only in the writings of Founding Fathers like Washington or great political thinkers like Edmund Burke; it is also found in a great part of our Judeo-Christian tradition.”
―
Ronald Reagan
