“The Democrats in the legislature agreed with us that welfare costs were headed for the stratosphere but claimed the solution was a huge tax increase—in other words, to keep pouring more money into a bucket that was full of holes.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“A nation that cannot control its borders is not a nation.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Welfare was taking away the very thing that people needed most—the initiative to provide for themselves. At the same time it was undermining the family: Teenagers from the inner cities, who for various reasons decided they didn’t want to live at home anymore, discovered that by getting pregnant—they didn’t even have to wait for their baby to be born—they got a welfare check that allowed them to rent their own apartment, and they discovered they could increase their monthly welfare check any time they chose simply by getting pregnant again. Meanwhile, the father of the child might have a good job and want to live with his family. But he was told his family was better off financially if he walked out on them; if he stayed, they wouldn’t get a welfare check. Not only was the welfare program a tax-financed incentive for immorality that was destroying the family, it was responsible for an endless and malignant cycle of despair in which generation after generation went on the dole and never had any incentive to leave it.”
―
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
“Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference in the world. But, the Marines don't have that problem.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Government does not solve problems. It subsidizes them.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved good-bye and 'slipped the surly bonds of earth' to 'touch the face of God. ”
―
Ronald Reagan
“What of all the entrepreneurs that fail? Well, many do, particularly the successful ones; often several times. And if you ask them the secret of their success, they’ll tell you it’s all that they learned in their struggles along the way; yes, it’s what they learned from failing.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“You can tell a lot about a fellow's character by his way of eating jellybeans. ”
―
Ronald Reagan
“To sit back hoping that someday, someway, someone will make things right is to go on feeding the crocodile, hoping he will eat you last - but eat you he will.”
―
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
“For more than five years, I’d made little progress with my efforts at quiet diplomacy—for one thing, the Soviet leaders kept dying on me.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“I couldn t help but say to Mr. Gorbachev just think how easy his task and mine might be in these meetings that we held if suddenly there was a threat to this world from another planet. We d find out once and for all that we really are all human beings here on this earth together”
―
Ronald Reagan
“While I take inspiration from the past, like most Americans, I live for the future.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“I thanked Nancy for what she had accomplished in her war against illegal drugs, but in my heart, I was really trying to say, “Thank you, Nancy, for everything; thank you for lighting up my life for almost forty years.”
―
Ronald Reagan
