Famous Quotes & Sayings

Ronald Reagan Quotes & Sayings

Enjoy the top 100 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Ronald Reagan.

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Famous Quotes By Ronald Reagan

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An America that is militarily and economically strong is not enough. The world must see an America that is morally strong with a creed and a vision. This is what has led us to dare and achieve. For us, values count. Speech, New York City, December 12, 1983 — Ronald Reagan

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For the eight years I was president I never let my dream of a nuclear-free world fade from my mind. — Ronald Reagan

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The Bible and its teachings helped form the basis for the Founding Fathers' abiding belief in the inalienable rights of the individual, rights which they found implicit in the Bible's teachings of the inherent worth and dignity of each individual. This same sense of man patterned the convictions of those who framed the English system of law inherited by our own Nation, as well as the ideals set forth in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. — Ronald Reagan

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Welfare's purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence. — Ronald Reagan

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We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions. — Ronald Reagan

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Trust me government asks that we concentrate our hopes and dreams on one man; that we trust him to do what's best for us. My view of government places trust not in one person or one party, but in those values that transcend persons and parties. The trust is where it belongs - in the people. The responsibility to live up to that trust is where it belongs, in their elected leaders. That kind of relationship, between the people and their elected leaders, is a special kind of compact. — Ronald Reagan

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I favor the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and it must be enforced at gunpoint if necessary. — Ronald Reagan

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Before I refuse to take your questions, I have an opening statement. — Ronald Reagan

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There is no greater happiness for a man than approaching a door at the end of a day knowing someone on the other side of that door is waiting for the sound of his footsteps. — Ronald Reagan

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It would seem that not only is religion lacking in the schools - so is common sense. I wonder what a teacher is supposed to say if a kid asks about those four words on a dime - 'In God We Trust.' Or maybe that's why they aren't being taught how to read these days. — Ronald Reagan

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While I take inspiration from the past, like most Americans, I live for the future. — Ronald Reagan

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We don't celebrate dependence day on the Fourth of July. We celebrate Independence Day. — Ronald Reagan

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For the first time ever, everything is in place for the Battle of Armageddon and the Second Coming of Christ. — Ronald Reagan

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Hayek is amongst the top 2-3 of the all the people who ever influenced me. — Ronald Reagan

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I was alarmed at my doctor's report: He said I was sound as a dollar. — Ronald Reagan

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Freedom is indivisible - there is no "s" on the end of it. You can erode freedom, diminish it, but you cannot divide it and choose to keep "some freedoms" while giving up others. — Ronald Reagan

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We desire peace. But peace is a goal, not a policy. Lasting peace is what we hope for at the end of our journey. It doesn't describe the steps we must take nor the paths we should follow to reach that goal. — Ronald Reagan

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Wouldn't it be better for the human spirit and for the soul of this nation to encourage people to accept more responsibility to care for each other rather than leaving those tasks to paid bureaucrats. — Ronald Reagan

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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. — Ronald Reagan

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Where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost. — Ronald Reagan

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There are some who've forgotten why we have a military. It's not to promote war. It's to be prepared for peace. There's a sign over the entrance to the Fairchild Air Force Base in Washington state, and that sign says it all: 'Peace is our profession'. — Ronald Reagan

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We are participating in the orderly transfer of administrative authority by the direction of the people. And this is the simple magic which makes a commonplace routine a near miracle to many of the world — Ronald Reagan

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Americans are not going to tolerate intimidation, terror and outright acts of war against this nation and its people. And we are especially not going to tolerate these attacks from outlaw states run by the strangest collection of misfits, Looney Tunes and squalid criminals since the advent of the Third Reich ... There can be no place on earth where it is safe for these monsters to rest,or train or practice their cruel and deadly. We must act together - or unilateraly, if necessary - to ensue that these terrorists have no sanctuary, anywhere. — Ronald Reagan

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Let it never be said of this generation of Americans that we became so obsessed with failure that we refused to take risks that could further the cause of peace and freedom in the world. — Ronald Reagan

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The great dynamic success of capitalism had given us a powerful weapon in our battle against Communism-money. — Ronald Reagan

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I received a letter just before I left office from a man. I don't know why he chose to write it, but I'm glad he did. He wrote that you can go to live in France, but you can't become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Italy, but you can't become a German, an Italian. He went through Turkey, Greece, Japan and other countries. But he said anyone, from any corner of the world, can come to live in the United States and become an American. — Ronald Reagan

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We in America have learned bitter lessons from two world wars: It is better to be here [in Europe] ready to protect the peace, than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost. We've learned that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent. — Ronald Reagan

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The Polish people be allowed to have a voice in the kind of govt. they want. Under the Yalta Pact the Soviets agreed they & others would be allowed to do this. The Soviets have never honored that promise. — Ronald Reagan

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I'm sure everyone feels sorry for the individual who has fallen by the wayside or who can't keep up in our competitive society, but my own compassion goes beyond that to those millions of unsung men and women, who get up every morning, send the kids to school, go to work, try to keep up the payments on their house, pay exorbitant taxes to make possible compassion for the less fortunate, and as a result have to sacrifice many of their own desires and dreams and hopes. Government owes them something better than always finding a new way to make them share the fruit of their toils with others. — Ronald Reagan

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The First Amendment of the Constitution was not written to protect the people from religion; that amendment was written to protect religion from government tyranny ... But now we're told our children have no right to pray in school. Nonsense. The pendulum has swung too far toward intolerance against genuine religious freedom. It is time to redress the balance. — Ronald Reagan

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And one more idea which may be laughed and sneered at in some supposedly sophisticated circles, but I just have to believe that the loving God who has blessed this land and thus made us a good and caring people should never have been expelled from America's classrooms. It's time to welcome Him back, because whenever we've opened ourselves and trusted in Him, we've gained not only moral courage but intellectual strength ... — Ronald Reagan

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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

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History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap. — Ronald Reagan

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Where others fear trade and economic growth, we see opportunities for creating new wealth and undreamed-of opportunities for millions in our own land and beyond. Where others seek to throw up barriers, we seek to bring them down; where others take counsel of their fears, we follow our hopes. — Ronald Reagan

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There is no security, no safety, in the appeasement of evil. — Ronald Reagan

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Bobby Kennedy is so concerned with poverty because he didn't have any as a kid. — Ronald Reagan

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The family has always been the cornerstone of American society. Our families nurture, preserve, and pass on to each succeeding generation the values we share and cherish, values that are the foundation of our freedoms. — Ronald Reagan

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Diplomacy, of course, is a subtle and nuanced craft, so much so that it's said that when the most wily diplomat of the nineteenth-century passed away, other diplomats asked, on reports of his death, What do you suppose the old fox meant by that? — Ronald Reagan

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I will stand on, and continue to use, the figures I have used, because I believe they are correct. Now, I'm not going to deny that you don't now and then slip up on something; no one bats a thousand. — Ronald Reagan

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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

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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

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Isn't our choice really not one of left or right, but of up or down? Down through the welfare state to statism, to more and more government largesse accompanied always by more government authority, less individual liberty, and ultimately, totalitarianism, always advanced as for our own good. The alternative is the dream conceived by our Founding Fathers, up to the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with an orderly society. — Ronald Reagan

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I've talked to you on a number of occasions about the economic problems our nation faces, and I am prepared to tell you it's in a hell of a mess-we're not connected to the press room yet, are we? — Ronald Reagan

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My friends, we did it. We weren't just marking time, we made a difference. We made (America) stronger - we made (America) freer - and we left her in good hands. All in all, not bad. Not bad at all. And so, goodbye. God bless you. And God bless the United States of America. — Ronald Reagan

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By working together, pooling our resources and building on our strengths, we can accomplish great things. — Ronald Reagan

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The full consequences of a default or even the serious prospect of default by the United States are impossible to predict and awesome to contemplate. Denigration of the full faith and credit of the United States would have substantial effects on the domestic financial markets and on the value of the dollar in exchange markets. The Nation can ill afford to allow such a result. The risks, the cost, the disruptions, and the incalculable damage lead me to but one conclusion: the Senate must pass this legislation before the Congress adjourns. — Ronald Reagan

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The societies which have achieved the most spectacular broad-based economic progress in the shortest period of time are not the most tightly controlled, not necessarily the biggest in size, or the wealthiest in natural resources. No, what unites them all is their willingness to believe in the magic of the marketplace. — Ronald Reagan

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Nations crumble from within when the citizenry asks of government those things which the citizenry might better provide for itself. — Ronald Reagan

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We are a nation that has a government-not the other way around. And that makes us special among the nations of the earth. — Ronald Reagan

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The United Sates has much to offer the third world war. — Ronald Reagan

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Education is not the means of showing people how to get what they want. Education is an exercise by means of which enough men, it is hoped, will learn to want what is worth having. — Ronald Reagan

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We speak with pride and admiration of that little band of Americans who overcame insuperable odds to set this nation on course 200 years ago. But our glory didn't end with them. Americans ever since have emulated their deeds. — Ronald Reagan

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You know, by the time you reach my age, you've made plenty of mistakes if you've lived your life properly. So you learn. You put things in perspective. You pull your energies together. You change. You go forward. My fellow Americans, I have a great deal that I want to accomplish with you and for you over the next two years. And, the Lord willing, that's exactly what I intend to do. — Ronald Reagan

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It's silly talking about how many years we will have to spend in the jungles of Vietnam when we could pave the whole country and put parking stripes on it and still be home by Christmas. — Ronald Reagan

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What we have found in this country, and maybe we're more aware of it now, is one problem that we've had, even in the best of times, and that is the people who are sleeping on the grates, the homeless, you might say, by choice. — Ronald Reagan

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America is too great for small dreams. — Ronald Reagan

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We think there is a parallel between federal involvement in education and the decline in profit over recent years. — Ronald Reagan

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The defense policy of the United States is based on a simple premise: The United States does not start fights. We will never be an aggressor. — Ronald Reagan

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I more than love you, I'm not whole without you. You are life itself to me. When you are gone I'm waiting for you to return so I can start living again. — Ronald Reagan

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When the Labor Department is forced to relent and let these visitors do this work it is of course all legal. But it makes one wonder about the illegal alien fuss. Are great numbers of our unemployed really victims of the illegal alien invasion or are those illegal tourists actually doing work our own people won't do? One thing is certain in this hungry world; no regulation or law should be allowed if it results in crops rotting in the field for lack of harvesters. — Ronald Reagan

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There are advantages to being elected President. The day after I was elected, I had my high school grades classified Top Secret. — Ronald Reagan

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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. — Ronald Reagan

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Our policy is simple: We are not going to betray our friends, reward the enemies of freedom, or permit fear and retreat to become American policies ... None of the four wars in my lifetime came about because we were too strong. It is weakness ... that invites adventurous adversaries to make mistaken judgments. — Ronald Reagan

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My fellow Americans, I must speak to you tonight about a mounting danger in Central America that threatens the security of the United States. This danger will not go away it will grow worse, much worse, if we fail to take action now. — Ronald Reagan

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America has never gotten in a war because we were too strong. — Ronald Reagan

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Indeed, it is an indisputable fact that all the complex and horrendous questions confronting us at home and worldwide have their answer in that single book [the Bible]. — Ronald Reagan

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Some people wonder all their lives if they've made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem. — Ronald Reagan

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By outlawing Solidarity, a free trade organization to which an overwhelming majority of Polish workers and farmers belong, they have made it clear that they never had any intention of restoring one of the most elemental human rights the right to belong to a free trade union. — Ronald Reagan

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They had that special grace, that special spirit that says, 'Give me a challenge and I'll meet it with joy. on Challenger disaster — Ronald Reagan

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It is no coincidence that when the thugs tried to wrest control over Grenada, there were 30 Soviet advisors and hundreds of Cuban military and paramilitary forces on the island. — Ronald Reagan

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Christopher Columbus was looking for a passage to India, but he landed in America. He landed in the wrong place, and when he got back, he wasn't sure where he'd been. But most important of all, he did it on someone else's money. — Ronald Reagan

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I have learned that one of the most important rules in politics is poise - which means looking like an owl after you have behaved like a jackass. — Ronald Reagan

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The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or the next. It was the deep knowledge - and pray God we have not lost it - that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. — Ronald Reagan

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Our nation will prosper or decline in direct proportion to our selection of leaders who are guided by the Holy Spirit. If we fail to select Godly leaders our destiny will surely be as that of the Roman Empire. — Ronald Reagan

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Certain forms of ammunition have no legitimate sporting, recreational, or self-defense use and thus should be prohibited. — Ronald Reagan

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We need true tax reform that will at least make a start toward restoring for our children the American dream that wealth is denied to no one, that each individual has the right to fly as high as his strength and ability will take him. — Ronald Reagan

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It should be clear to everyone that the nation's steadfast policy should afford every American of working age a realistic opportunity to acquire the ownership and control of some meaningful form of property in a growing national economy. — Ronald Reagan

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Freedom is one of the deepest and noblest aspirations of the human spirit. — Ronald Reagan

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There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right. — Ronald Reagan

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Freedom is the very essence of our nation. To be sure, ours is not a perfect nation. But even with our troubles, we remain the beacon of hope for oppressed peoples everywhere. Never give up the fight for freedom - a fight which, though it may never end, is the most ennobling known to man. — Ronald Reagan

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Well, my head's full of questions My temp'rature's risin' fast Well, I'm lookin' for some answers But I don't know who to ask — Ronald Reagan

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Republicans believe every day is the Fourth of July, but the democrats believe every day is April 15. — Ronald Reagan

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Our natural, inalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation from government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment. — Ronald Reagan

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

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It's been written that the most sublime figure in American history was George Washington on his knees in the snow at Valley Forge. He personified a people who knew that it was not enough to depend on their own courage and goodness, that they must also seek help from God - their Father and preserver. Where did we begin to lose sight of that noble beginning, of our conviction that standards of right and wrong do exist and must be lived up to? Do we really think that we can have it both ways, that God will protect us in a time of crisis even as we turn away from him in our day-to-day life? — Ronald Reagan

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I'm not smart enough to lie — Ronald Reagan

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We intend to keep the peace - we will also keep our freedom. — Ronald Reagan

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I am told that tens of thousands of prayer meetings are being held on this day; for that I am deeply grateful. We are a nation under God, and I believe God intended for us to be free. It would be fitting and good, I think, if on each inaugural day in future years it should be declared a day of prayer. — Ronald Reagan

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I knew Thomas Jefferson. He was a friend of mine. And believe me, you are no Thomas Jefferson. (at 1992 Republican party convention, referring to Bill Clinton) — Ronald Reagan

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What if free people could live secure in the knowledge that their security did not rest upon the threat of instant U.S. retaliation to deter a Soviet attack, that we could intercept and destroy strategic ballistic missiles before they reached our own soil or that of our allies? — Ronald Reagan

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Those who advocate more and more government regulation have been experimenting for 40 years, trying to create an economic system in which everyone can somehow be made more prosperous by the toil of someone else. — Ronald Reagan

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I don't know what I expected, but my first morning in the Oval Office had a surprising ring of familiarity to it. It reminded me a lot of my job as governor. — Ronald Reagan

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I heard one presidential candidate say that what this country needed was a president for the nineties. I was set to run again. I thought he said a president IN his nineties. — Ronald Reagan

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Love your country, not for her power or wealth, but for her selflessness and her idealism. — Ronald Reagan

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Excellence does not begin in Washington. — Ronald Reagan

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Freedom is not free — Ronald Reagan

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There's no question I am an idealist, which is another way of saying 'I am an American.' — Ronald Reagan

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The government is currently experiencing withdrawal symptoms, and we musn't feed the habit by injecting more tax dollars into it. — Ronald Reagan

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It ought to be remembered by all [that] the Games more than 2,000 years ago started as a means of bringing peace between the Greek city-states. And in those days, even if a war was going on, they called off the war in order to hold the Games. I wish we were still as civilized. — Ronald Reagan

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Freedom is the right to question and change the established way of doing things. It is the continuing revolution of the marketplace. It is the understanding that allows us to recognize shortcomings and seek solutions. It is the right to put forth an idea, scoffed at by the experts, and watch it catch fire among the people. It is the right to follow your dream, or stick to your conscience even if you're the only one in a sea of doubters. — Ronald Reagan