"We win, they lose."
"The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help."
"The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant: It's just that they know so much that isn't so."
"Of the four wars in my lifetime none came about because the U.S. was too strong."
"I have wondered at times about what the Ten Commandment's would have looked like if Moses had run them through the U.S. Congress."
"The taxpayer: That's someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take the civil service examination."
"Government is like a baby: An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other."
"The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a government program."
"I've laid down the law, though, to everyone from now on about anything that happens: no matter what time it is, wake me, even if it's in the middle of a Cabinet meeting."
"It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first."
"Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."
"Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book."
"Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first."
"No arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women."
"If we ever forget that we're one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under."
"They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong."
"Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. Those who have known freedom, and then lost it, have never known it again."
"Whatever time I've got left now belongs to the Big Fella Upstairs." (spoke these words while recovering from gunshot wounds that almost took his life while serving as President).
"Our forbearance should never be misunderstood. Our reluctance for conflict should not be misjudged as a failure of will. When action is required to preserve our national security, we will act."
"There are no easy answers ... but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right."
"I thank you, thank you for inviting us here today. Thank you for your kindness and your patience. May God keep you, and may we, all of us, keep God."
(Remarks at an Ecumenical Prayer Breakfast in Dallas, Texas August 23, 1984 http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/resource/speeches/1984/82384a.htm)
"Why should we be frightened? No people who have ever lived on this earth have fought harder, paid a higher price for freedom, or done more to advance the dignity of man than the living Americans, those Americans living in this land today."
"I'm convinced more than ever that man finds liberation only when he binds himself to God and commits himself to his fellow man."
"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" (Remarks at the Brandenburg Gate West Berlin, Germany June 12, 1987)
"The house we hope to build is not for my generation but for yours. It is your future that matters. And I hope that when you are my age, you will be able to say as I have been able to say: We lived in freedom. We lived lives that were a statement, not an apology."
"One way to make sure crime doesn't pay would be to let the government run it."
"Some people wonder all their lives if they've made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem."
"There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect."
"There are no such things as limits to growth, because there are no limits to the human capacity for intelligence, imagination, and wonder"
"...I know it's hard when you're up to your armpits in alligators to remember you came here to drain the swamp. (February 10, 1982)"
"I know in my heart that man is good. That what is right will always eventually triumph. And there's purpose and worth to each and every life."
"We are never defeated unless we give up on God."
"Most of my dreams came true. (told to biographer Lou Cannon in 1991)"
"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."
"To sit back hoping that someday, some way, someone will make things right is to go on feeding the crocodile, hoping he will eat you last -- but eat you he will."
"We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much"
"The problem is not that people are taxed too little, the problem is that government spends too much."
"Without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure."
"Democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man."
"Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves."
"Today, if you invent a better mousetrap, the government comes along with a better mouse."
"Man is not free unless government is limited."
"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction"
"Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book." And I guess President Clinton learned from that one :)
"Today we have done what we had to do. If necessary, we shall do it again."
"We need you, we need your youth, your strength, and your idealism, to help us make right what is wrong."
"Let us be sure that those who come after will say of us in our time, that in our time we did everything that could be done. We finished the race; we kept them free; we kept the faith."
"These young Americans sent a message to terrorists everywhere. . . . You can run but you can't hide."
"Let us be sure that those who come after will say of us in our time, that in our time we did everything that could be done. We finished the race; we kept them free; we kept the faith."
"Peace is not absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means."
"When you can't make them see the light, make them feel the heat."
"Peace is more than just the absence of war. True peace is justice, true peace is freedom. And true peace dictates the recognition of human rights."
Ronald Wilson Reagan ... February 6, 1911--June 5, 2004
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