President Reagan Quotes & Sayings

As we celebrate President Reagan's remarkable career and historic legacy, we also celebrate a man of strong character, deep conviction, unforgettable charm, and wonderful wit. — Jim Ramstad

Every child is born with tremendous love for himself. It is the society that destroys that love, it is the religion that destroys that love - because if a child goes on growing in loving himself, who is going to love Jesus Christ? Who is going to love the president, Ronald Reagan? Who is going to love the parents? — Rajneesh

Well, I think the reality is that as you study - when President Kennedy cut marginal tax rates, when Ronald Reagan cut marginal tax rates, when President Bush imposed those tax cuts, they actually generated economic growth. They expanded the economy. They expand tax revenues. — Mike Pence

The author deduces the best way James Baker serve Reagan as Chief of Staff was to continually remind him why he wanted to be president. — Chris Matthews

President Reagan is a lot like E.T. He's cute, he's lovable, and he knows nothing about how Americans live. — Elayne Boosler

The odds against an adoptee ending up as the child of the President of the United States are staggering. But then, so are the odds against a movie star becoming president. — Michael Reagan

As [House] speaker, I came back, working with President Bill Clinton. We passed a very Reagan-like program: less regulation, lower taxes. Unemployment dropped to 4.2 percent. We created 11 million jobs. — Newt Gingrich

Presidents don't get vacations - they just get a change of scenery. The job goes with you. — Nancy Reagan

To be sure, administrations since Ronald Reagan had gone out of their way to massage and 'spin' news to the president's advantage, while the media did its best to un-spin it. — Nigel Hamilton

People don't understand that all presidents, the minute they become president, get a knock at the door. And there's a man there saying, 'Let's talk about your funeral.' At the time I thought, God, that's a terrible thing. Later on, I thought it was pretty wise. — Nancy Reagan

AUGUST 5, 1981. That's the date it became official. It's rare that we can point to an exact date when a business theory or idea becomes an accepted practice. But in the case of mass layoffs, we can. August 5, 1981, was the day President Ronald Reagan fired more than 11,000 air traffic controllers. — Simon Sinek

I believe very sincerely that we were extremely fortunate to have the recent recession while George Bush was President, just as we were very lucky that the recession of 1990 was under George H.W. Bush's presidency and the recession of 1981 was under Ronald Reagan. I think the fact that recessions tend to happen when Republicans are in the White House is a perfect example of God's divine providence. I've heard it said that the good Lord doesn't give you anything you can't handle, and maybe that's why he tries to always have us running things during economic downturns. — Jack Kimble

There is no job description for the first lady and she's only there because her husband got elected president. — Nancy Reagan

When Ronald Reagan spoke a thing aloud, he believed it forever and for always. By the time he started running for president, in 1976, he had already developed an unwavering and steadfast faith in the correctness of whatever came out of his mouth. — Rachel Maddow

Do Americans want the government to micromanage every aspect of our lives? President Ronald Reagan certainly didn't. — Kimberly Guilfoyle

In the first weeks of the Obama administration, 'bipartisanship' was the reigning buzzword, and when the Beltway thinks 'bipartisan,' it pictures President Reagan and Democratic Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill putting aside their differences and forging a legislative partnership, a ruddy pair of genial patriarchs bonding over the Blarney Stone. — James Wolcott

Given that the majority of communication to which we are subjected in a day consists of advertising, if nearly all of that advertising insists on regarding us as pampered children, what does that do to us? It winds us up with a godforsaken second term of smarmy granddad President Ronald Wilson Reagan for one. — Kathleen Rooney

So far as I'm concerned, Ronald Reagan was the best president. Nixon was the worst. Some of his policies were okay, but he disgraced the office. — Charles Krauthammer

President Reagan was elected on the promise of getting government off the backs of the people and now he demands that government wrap itself around the waists of the people. — Ralph Nader

The modern era of continuity planning began under President Ronald Reagan. — Barton Gellman

Just when you think there's nothing to write about, Nixon says, 'I am not a crook.' Jimmy Carter says, 'I have lusted after women in my heart.' President Reagan says, 'I have just taken a urinalysis test, and I am not on dope. — Art Buchwald

In 1985, a group of mujahedeen came to Washington and was greeted by President Reagan, who called them "freedom fighters." These people, by the way, don't represent Islam in any formal sense. They're not imams or sheiks. They are self-appointed warriors for Islam. — Edward Said

The friction began at this first meeting. O'Neill was not initially impressed with Reagan and said to him, "You've been a governor of a state, but a governor plays in the minor leagues. You're in the big leagues now." (O'Neill had said the same thing to Jimmy Carter four years before.) Reagan replied, "Oh, you know, no problem there." Despite the genial response, O'Neill's comment represented the very kind of Washington haughtiness that set Reagan's teeth on edge. Aides to the president-elect were incensed. — Steven F. Hayward

In 1962, President John F. Kennedy said, "Our true choice is not between tax reduction on the one hand and avoidance of large federal deficits on the other; it is increasingly clear that no matter what party is in power, as long as our national security needs keep rising, an economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenues to balance the budget - just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits. In short, the paradoxical truth is that the tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise revenues in the long run is to cut rates now. — Ronald Reagan

I have been hung in effigy by the gay community for a long time, from when I was on President Reagan's first AIDS commission. — Richard DeVos

Global political conditions make a direct American intervention difficult, but President Reagan's messianic and visceral attitude toward the Nicaraguan revolution could mean it will happen as an act of desperation. — Tomas Borge

The stories have been told so often by those of us who supported President Reagan over the years that they seem mundane, almost like a fictional novel or a movie script. — William L. Jenkins

When people tell me that I became President on January 20th, 1981, I feel I have to correct them. You don't become President of the United States. You are given temporary custody of an institution called the Presidency, which belongs to our people. — Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan is the most ignorant president since Warren Harding. — Ralph Nader

Reagan was president. He had the authority to end the infighting, set policy, and advance American interests in the Middle East. Before him was a clear choice; Shultz arguing for engagement, Weinberger for disengagement. Engagement would likely have involved the use of military force; disengagement offered the comfort of a casualty-free retreat. In the post-Vietnam era, for this president, at this time, disengagement made more sense. He still talked a good game, but when it was time for a decision, he punted. "In the weeks immediately after the bombing," he later wrote, "I believed the last thing we should do was turn tail and leave."58 And yet, fearful of another Vietnam, he waited a few months and then pulled the remaining marines out of Beirut. According to McFarlane many years later, his decision opened the door to the terrorism that has plagued the region and the world ever since. "I am convinced we could have stopped it then, just as it was starting, but Reagan chose not to. — Marvin Kalb

Ronald Reagan is the first modern President whose contempt for the facts is treated as a charming idiosyncrasy. — James David Barber

I'm glad Reagan is president. Of course, I'm a professional comedian. — Will Durst

Reagan is held up to us as an example of never raising taxes. Correction: Reagan raised taxes six of his eight years as president. Why? He was a pragmatist, not doctrinaire. He saw problems emerging, and when his policies faltered he changed his views. Flexibility, not rigidity. — Eugene Jarecki

Reagan's dead, and he was a lousy President. — Keith Olbermann

When President Ronald Reagan asked me a stupid question once, I called him an idiot in public! I thought I was going to be arrested, but he laughed and appreciated me. — Bikram Choudhury

There have been many amazing Presidents in American history, including George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan, all of whom I greatly admire. — Donald Trump

Any satirist writing a futuristic novel who had imagined a President Reagan during the Eisenhower years would have been accused of perpetrating a piece of crude, contemptible, adolescent, anti-American wickedness, when, in fact, he would have succeeded, as prophetic sentry, where Orwell failed. — Philip Roth

A Masai warrior on a cellphone in the middle of Kenya has better mobile comm than President Reagan did 25 years ago. — Peter Diamandis

Fellow Americans, our duty is before us tonight. Let us go forward, determined to serve selflessly a vision of man with God, government for people, and humanity at peace. For it is now our task to tend and preserve, through the darkest and coldest nights, that "sacred fire of liberty" that President Washington spoke of two centuries ago, a fire that tonight remains a beacon to all oppressed of the world, shining forth from this kindly, pleasant, greening land we call America. — Ronald Reagan

I think Ronald Reagan was the best President of my lifetime. — Johnny Ramone

You know my father as governor, as president, but I knew him as dad. I was so proud to have the Reagan name and to be Ronald Reagan's son. — Michael Reagan

President Ford was taken for a ride by his predecessor, whom he unpardonably pardoned; Jimmy Carter was also taken for a ride, but by his successor, Ronald Reagan, over the return of the Iran hostages. — Nigel Hamilton

Well, I think that there's a clear record, I worked with Ronald Reagan in the early '80s and his recovery program translated into today's population of about 25 million new jobs in a seven-year period. As Speaker of the House, I worked with President Clinton and he followed with a very similar plan. And we ended up with about 11 million new jobs in a four-year period. — Newt Gingrich

With his trademark courage and conviction, President Reagan led us out of the Cold War, spreading his vision of freedom, resulting in the release of millions of people from the yoke of communism. — John Doolittle

President Reagan was the quintessential Happy Warrior, and no one loves, respects, and admires Reagan more than I do. — Monica Crowley

President [Ronald] Reagan told me he would negotiate and negotiate and negotiate with the Soviets, and I believed him. — Helmut Schmidt

I have said there are three principles that should be followed. One, we should maintain the "one China" policy that every American president has articulated, including President Reagan. Secondly, we should make clear that we want a peaceful resolution. And three, Taiwan should not challenge that arrangement in a way that will provoke a conflict. Those are three perfectly clear principles. I haven't used any of the other slogans. — Henry A. Kissinger

Again and again as president, Reagan let it slip that he concurred with fundamentalists' belief that the world would end in a fiery Armageddon. This did not hurt him politically. The kind of people offended by such talk had already largely abandoned the Republican Party. — Rick Perlstein

Ronald Reagan was a president of strength. His philosophy was a philosophy of strength - a strong military, a strong economy and strong families. — Mitt Romney

The importance of visiting the Boyhood Home of Former President Ronald Reagan to your personal life is clear and unchallenged. Touring the Home will give you a powerful feeling: You will realize that, though none of us are destined for the greatness that awaited 9-year-old Ronald Reagan, we all have a manner of greatness within us, untapped perhaps for many years, but held there in the heart, like a secret. — Amelia Gray

George W. Bush, though a president's son, is cast as Reagan's heir even more than his father's. — Nancy Gibbs

Expanding a failing, big-government program that reduces flexibility for the states and traps generations of Americans in dependency is not consistent with the kind of conservative solutions that Reagan sought during his terms as governor of California and president of the United States. — Edwin Meese

I would rank George Washington as America's greatest president, but he only had to defeat what was then the world's greatest military power with a ragtag group of irregulars and some squirrel guns, whereas Ronald Reagan had to defeat liberals. — Ann Coulter

The thought of being President frightens me and I do not think I want the job. — Ronald Reagan

In the past, the U.S. has shown its capacity to reinvent its gifts for leadership. During the 1970s, in the aftermath of the Nixon abdication and the Ford and Carter presidencies, the whole nation peered into the abyss, was horrified by what it saw and elected Ronald Reagan as president, which began a national resurgence. — Paul Johnson

There's the Ronald Reagan cupped-ear gambit. The press is deliberately and systematically kept away from him. All you hear is a bunch of monkeys screaming at him when they could easily have been brought right up and the president could have stood and talked in a conversational tone. — John Chancellor

August 19, 1981: President Ronald Reagan nominates Sandra Day O'Connor to be the first woman on the Supreme Court. Male justices who had made noises over the years about resigning if a woman ever joined their ranks stay put. — Irin Carmon

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

As a former U.S. attorney general under President Reagan, and a former Ohio secretary of state, we would like to say something that might strike some as obvious: Those who oppose photo voter-ID laws and other election-integrity reforms are intent on making it easier to commit vote fraud. — Edwin Meese

Though it was never a goal in life, it has occurred to me that I've met six presidents of the United States. OK, I met four of them before they became president, including Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, No. 43. — Dan Jenkins

At the height of the Cold War, when Ronald Reagan was president, the Soviets and their allies and satellites did not shirk human rights debates with the West. They had their arguments ready. — Elliott Abrams

The atmosphere in Washington was different. President Reagan remained popular, despite having committed crimes far worse than those that had brought Nixon down: financing terrorism in Nicaragua, trading weapons for hostages with Iran, and turning women and girls into mangled corpses on the streets of Beirut. Reagan's collaborator Vice President George H. W. Bush looked likely to become the next president. Somehow - and Jasper could not figure out how this trick had been worked - people who challenged the president and caught him out cheating and lying were no longer heroes, as they had been in the seventies, but instead were considered disloyal and even anti-American. — Ken Follett

One of Ronald Reagan's fantasies as president was that he would take Mikhail Gorbachev on a tour of the United States so the Soviet leader could see how ordinary Americans lived. Reagan often talked about it. He imagined that he and Gorbachev would fly by helicopter over a working-class community, viewing a factory and its parking lot filled with cars and then circling over the pleasant neighborhood where the factory workers lived in homes "with lawns and backyards, perhaps with a second car or a boat in the driveway, not the concrete rabbit warrens I'd seen in Moscow." The helicopter would descend, and Reagan would invite Gorbachev to knock on doors and ask the residents "what they think of our system." The workers would tell him how wonderful it was to live in America. — Henry Kissinger

During my first press conference as president, in answer to a direct question, I pointed out that, as good Marxist-Leninists, the Soviet leaders have openly and publicly declared that the only morality they recognize is that which will further their cause, which is world revolution. — Ronald Reagan

It didn't seem to matter that Reagan made his heartfelt endorsements of traditional family values despite being divorced and so alienated from his own children that one of them would write a book about what a rotten father he had been; by the same token, the president's failure to have made regular or even occasional visits to church hardly dimmed his appeal for the resurgent religious right — Douglas Brinkley

[Television executives] are afraid to advertise condoms that could save lives, but do not blush about telecasting a National Geographic special on President Reagan's pelvic plumbing. — Martin Nolan

There's one difference between me and them: I know I'm not qualified. In my opinion, Arnold Schwarzenegger wasn't qualified to be governor of California. Ronald Reagan wasn't qualified to be governor, let alone president. I was a vice president of the Screen Actors Guild when he was its president. My duties consisted of attending meetings and voting. The only thing I remember is that Ronnie never had an original thought and that we had to tell him what to say. That's no way to run a union, let along a state or a country. — James Garner

So that was Reagan's political problem. As a rancher in California, he was an environmentalist himself. But the President of the United States doesn't control everything that happens in Washington. — Brian Mulroney

It's interesting how Obama's adorers in the press keep comparing him to Lincoln and Reagan. Apparently they can't think of a Democrat president worthy of being compared to. — Ann Coulter

President [Ronald] Reagan never has tried to become an expert on military matters. He never has endeavored to learn the most important details in that field, which lead to a situation in which his aides played a much greater roles than aides would have played under President Ford or let us say in the whole Nixon-Ford-Kissinger era. — Helmut Schmidt

As his vice president for eight years, I learned more from Ronald Reagan than from anyone I encountered in all my years of public life. — George H. W. Bush

The first reports of AIDS closely followed the inauguration of President Ronald Reagan, whose 'family values' agenda and alliance with Christian conservatives associated AIDS with deviance and sin. — Barton Gellman

[Ronald]Reagan and[George W.] Bush were far more radical than other presidents. — Kevin Drum

Reagan, people claimed, was too old to run for president and to be elected. But he proved himself such a vigorous campaigner in the primary system that he overcame those beliefs. — Geoffrey Cowan

When my father, Ronald Reagan, was running for president in 1980, my mother, Nancy, traveled with him on the campaign trail, but she did not give speeches or even many interviews. She never stood in front of a group of reporters and expounded on her views and opinions. — Patti Davis

We were really helped when President Ronald Reagan came in. I remember non-commissioned officers who were going to retire and they re-enlisted because they believed in President Reagan. That's the kind of President Ronald Reagan was. He helped our country win the Cold War. He put it behind us in a way no one ever believed would be possible. He was truly a great American leader. And those of us in the Armed Forces loved him, respected him, and tremendously admired him for his great leadership. — Wesley Clark

President Reagan is a rhetorical roundheels, as befits a politician seeking empathy with his audience. — William Safire

Mr. President: We, women political prisoners of the Soviet Union, congratulate you on your reelection to the spot of President of the USA. We look with hope to your country which is on the road of FREEDOM and respect for HUMAN RIGHTS. We wish you success on this road. — Ronald Reagan

President George Herbert Walker Bush ran as a strong conservative, ran to continue the third term of Ronald Reagan, continue the Ronald Reagan revolution. Then he raised taxes and in '92 ran as an establishment moderate - same candidate, two very different campaigns. — Ted Cruz

President Reagan was a leader at a time when the American people most needed leadership. He outlined a vision that captured the imagination of the free world, a vision that toppled the Communist empire and freed countless millions. — Dennis Hastert

I often quote Ronald Reagan, who is pretty close to my favorite President ever, I will have to say that, but one of my favorite remarks he ever made was that when you look at Federal programs, there is nothing so close to eternal life on Earth as a Federal Government program. — Marsha Blackburn

Impeach President Reagan retroactively for agreeing with Obama on the assault weapons ban. — John Fugelsang

Reagan was president and had Democrats control the House and Senate, and they reformed the tax code. Clinton was president, and he had Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole; they reformed welfare and balanced the budget. — Kevin McCarthy

All Americans and freedom-loving people around the world owe President Reagan our deepest gratitude for his strong, principled leadership that ended the Cold War and brought freedom to millions of people. — Jim Ramstad

I was friends with President Ronald Reagan and he once said to me, 'I don't know how anybody can serve in public office without being an actor.' — Warren Beatty

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

In the event of the death of a current or former President, like the recent death of President Ronald Reagan, the flag should be flown at half-staff for thirty days from the day of the death. — Michael K. Simpson

President Reagan's one-liners were terrific. — Geraldine Ferraro

Obama was the fourth president I had worked for who said outright that he wanted to eliminate all nuclear weapons (Carter, Reagan, and Bush 41 were the others). Former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, former defense secretary Bill Perry, and former senator Sam Nunn had also called for "going to zero." The only problem, in my view, was that I hadn't heard the leaders of any other nuclear country - Britain, France, Russia, China, India, or Pakistan - signal the same intent. — Robert M. Gates

From Jefferson to Jackson to Lincoln to FDR to Reagan, every great president inspires enormous affection and enormous hostility. We'll all be much saner, I think, if we remember that history is full of surprises and things that seemed absolutely certain one day are often unimaginable the next. — Jon Meacham

We campaigned across the South ... without a single catcall or boo. It was not until we got north to New York that we began to hear this from Koch, President Reagan, and then Mrs. Ferraro ... Some people are making hysteria while I'm making history. — Jesse Jackson

You could tell he (President Ronald Reagan) was an old radio guy. He never once looked at the television monitor. — Harry Caray

How can a president not be an actor? — Ronald Reagan

I'm very grateful that President Obama has lifted the restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. — Nancy Reagan

[Reagan] was the best president in this era, as he had the perfect temperament for the job. — Dan Patrick

I think if you're going to do a movie about Reagan, you do it about the fact that he created the huge deficit, that he armed the Mujahideen, that he armed Saddam, that he armed Iran, that he armed two-thirds of the Axis of Evil, and that he funded terrorists in Central America. He was, in my mind, a terrible president. — Al Franken

We all obviously need others to look up to, and be inspirational to us. Ford did a great job as far as putting the presidency back where it belonged, getting the trust back after Nixon. And President Reagan has been one of the most influential presidents. — Steve Garvey

I don't think President Obama has been that revolutionary in reaching out to ethnic communities. President Reagan did a lot for the black community that people don't realize. — Terrence Howard

All of us who covered the Reagans agreed that President Reagan was personable and charming, but I'm not so certain he was nice. It's hard for me to think of anyone as 'nice' when I hear him say 'The homeless are homeless because they want to be homeless.' — Helen Thomas

President Reagan fueled the spirit of America. His smile, his optimism, his total belief in the ultimate triumph of democracy and freedom, and his willingness to act on that belief, helped end the Cold War and usher in a new and brighter phase of history. — Colin Powell