Ronald Reagan Quotes

Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.

~ Ronald Reagan

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

~ Ronald Reagan

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.

~ Ronald Reagan

There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don't care who gets the credit.

~ Ronald Reagan

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

~ Ronald Reagan

The future doesn't belong to the light-hearted. It belongs to the brave.

~ 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

I've heard that hard work never killed anyone, but I say why take the chance?

~ Ronald Reagan

Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book.

~ Ronald Reagan

If you're explaining, you're losing.

~ Ronald Reagan

We are never defeated unless we give up on God.

~ Ronald Reagan

We can’t help everyone, but everyone can help someone.

~ Ronald Reagan

More than a decade ago, a Supreme Court decision literally wiped off the books of fifty states statutes protecting the rights of unborn children. Abortion on demand now takes the lives of up to 1.5 million unborn children a year. Human life legislation ending this tragedy will some day pass the Congress, and you and I must never rest until it does. Unless and until it can be proven that the unborn child is not a living entity, then its right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness must be protected.

~ Ronald Reagan

Our government needs the church, because only those humble enough to admit they're sinners can bring democracy the tolerance it requires to survive

~ Ronald Reagan

Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong.

~ Ronald Reagan

If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals — if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.

~ Ronald Reagan

Someday, the realm of liberty and justice will encompass the planet. Freedom is not just the birthright of the few, it is the God-given right of all His children, in every country. It won't come by conquest. It will come, because freedom is right and freedom works. It will come, because cooperation and good will among free people will carry the day.

~ Ronald Reagan

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

~ Ronald Reagan

If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth.

~ Ronald Reagan

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.

~ Ronald Reagan

The miracle of life is given by One greater than ourselves, but once given, each life is ours to nurture and preserve, to foster, not only for today's world but for a better one to come. There is no purpose more noble than for us to sustain and celebrate life in a turbulent world, and that is what we must do now. We have no higher duty, no greater cause as humans. Life and the preservation of freedom to live it in dignity is what we are on this Earth to do. Everything we work to achieve must seek that end so that some day our prime ministers, our premiers, our presidents, and our general secretaries will talk not of war and peace, but only of peace.

~ Ronald Reagan

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.

~ Ronald Reagan

If freedom, democracy, and the rights of man are to be preserved through the ages, free men and women must accept the responsibilities that go with their freedoms.

~ Ronald Reagan

If politics were a musical, it would be Promises, Promises.

~ Ronald Reagan

As government expands, liberty contracts.

~ Ronald Reagan

How do you tell a Communist? Well, it’s someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It’s someone who understands Marx and Lenin.

~ Ronald Reagan

I've never been able to understand why a Republican contributor is a 'fat cat' and a Democratic contributor of the same amount of money is a 'public-spirited philanthropist'.

~ Ronald Reagan

Within the covers of the Bible are the answers for all the problems men face.

~ Ronald Reagan

Regimes planted by bayonets do not take root... Our military strength is a prerequisite to peace, but let it be clear we maintain this strength in the hope it will never be used, for the ultimate determinant in the struggle that's now going on in the world will not be bombs and rockets but a test of wills and ideas, a trial of spiritual resolve, the values we hold, the beliefs we cherish, the ideals to which we are dedicated.

~ Ronald Reagan

It seems to me that America is constantly reinventing what America means.

~ Ronald Reagan

Recession is when your neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his.

~ Ronald Reagan

The key for any speaker is to establish his own point of view for the audience, so they can see the game through his eyes.

~ Ronald Reagan

Radio was theater of the mind.

~ Ronald Reagan

You can’t tax business. Business doesn’t pay taxes. It collects taxes.

~ Ronald Reagan

We fought a war on poverty, and poverty won

~ 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

Yes, our country has its shortcomings, but there's no moral equivalency between democracy and totalitarianism…There's no moral equivalency between propaganda and the truth.

~ Ronald Reagan

Why should we subsidize intellectual curiosity?

~ Ronald Reagan

Just think how happy you'd be if you lost everything you have right now & then got it back.

~ Ronald Reagan

Government does not solve problems. It subsidizes them.

~ Ronald Reagan