Top 1117 Quotes & Sayings by Ronald Reagan - Page 13

We can't socialize the doctors without socializing the patients.

I believe the highest aspiration of man should be individual freedom and the development of the individual.

We can meet our destiny, and that destiny to build a land here that will be, for all mankind, a shining city on a hill.

For centuries the Bible's emphasis on compassion and love for our neighbor has inspired institutional and governmental expressions of benevolent outreach such as private charity, the establishment of schools and hospitals, and the abolition of slavery.

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

With regard to the freedom of the individual for choice with regard to abortion, there is one individual who is not being considered at all, and that is the one who is being aborted. And I have noticed that everybody that is for abortion has already been born.

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.

Some years ago a top Ford official was showing the late Walter Reuther through the very automates plant in Cleveland, Ohio and he said to him jokingly, "Walter, you'll have a hard time collecting union dues from these machines." and Walter said, "you are going to have more trouble trying to sell automobiles to them." Both of them let it stop there. There was a logical answer to that ... the owners of the machines could buy automobiles and if you increase the number of owners you increase the number of consumers.

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.

Two visions of the world remain locked in dispute. The first believes all men are created equal by a loving God who has blessed us with freedom. The second vision believes that religion is opium for the masses. It believes that eternal principles like truth, liberty, and democracy have no meaning beyond the whim of the state. And [Vladimir] Lenin spoke for them.

If there's one thing the American people aren't lacking, it is courage.

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

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].

I have flown twice over Mount St. Helens out on our West Coast. I'm not a scientist and I don't know the figures, but I have a suspicion that that one little mountain has probably released more sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere of the world than has been released in the last ten years of automobile driving or things of that kind that people are so concerned about.

Entrepreneurs are the forgotten heroes of America.

My basic rule is that I want people who don't want a job in government.

I am an environmentalist. ... I am for clean air.

But I also happen to be someone who believes in tithing--the giving of a tenth .

How can we not believe in the greatness of America? How can we not do what is right and needed to preserve this last best hope of man on Earth? After all our struggles to restore America, to revive confidence in our country, hope for our future - after all our hard-won victories earned through the patience and courage of every citizen - we cannot, must not, and will not turn. We will finish our job. How could we do less? We're Americans.

I miss going to church, but I think the Lord understands.

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.

Our moral imperative is to work with all our powers for that day when the children of the world grow up without the fear of nuclear war.

And we're also remembering the guiding light of our Judeo-Christian tradition. All of us here today are descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, sons and daughters of the same God. I believe we are bound by faith in our God, by our love for family and neighborhood, by our deep desire for a more peaceful world, and by our commitment to protect the freedom which is our legacy as Americans. These values have given a renewed sense of worth to our lives. They are infusing America with confidence and optimism that many thought we had lost.

We know that this mad dog of the Middle East has a goal of a world revolution. (On Muammar Qaddafi of Libya)

I would like to dissolve the $10 billion national Department of Education created by President Carter and turn schools back to the local school districts, where we built the greatest public school system the world has ever seen. I think I can make a case that the decline in the quality of public education began when federal aid became federal interference.

It doesn't do any good to hold the door open for someone if they don't have a way to walk through it. And if they do have a way to pass through it then you probably don't need to hold it open because they can open it for themselves.

The time has come to match outgo to income, instead of always doing it the other way around.

We now know that inflation results from all that deficit spending.

The other day, someone told me the difference between a democracy and a people's democracy. It's the same difference between a jacket and a straitjacket.

I deplore the tendency, in some institutions, to go directly toward training for a trade or profession or something and ignoring the liberal arts. It is the foundation of education.

In an atmosphere of liberty, artists and patrons are free to think the unthinkable and create the audacious; they are free to make both horrendous mistakes and glorious celebrations.

We in government should learn to look at our country with the eyes of the entrepreneur, seeing possibilities where others see only problems

With all this talk about the supposed strain in relations [with the Soviet Union], there is an inference that somehow it is our fault. But we didn't kill Russian civilians by shooting down a civilian airplane. We didn't attempt to conquer an adjacent country to ours. We didn't walk out on negotiations and refuse to give a date for when we would resume.

I doubt evolution is real.

Freedom prospers only where the blessings of God are avidly sought, and humbly accepted.

We who live in free market societies believe that growth, prosperity and ultimately human fulfillment, are created from the bottom up, not the government down.

In closing, let me thank you, the American people, for giving me the great honor of allowing me to serve as your president. When the Lord calls me home, whenever that day may be, I will leave with the greatest love for this country of ours and eternal optimism for its future. I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life. I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead.

The best way to get over a dog's death is to get another soon.

I know I'm not in government anymore. In fact I'm out of work.

I'm convinced, more than ever, that man finds liberation only when he binds himself to God and commits himself to his fellow man.

Free enterprise has done more to reduce poverty than all the government programs dreamed up by Democrats.

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

They are our brothers, these freedom fighters.... They are the moral equal of our Founding Fathers and the brave men and women of the French Resistance. We cannot turn away from them, for the struggle here is not right versus left; it is right versus wrong.

I have a feeling that we are doing better in the war than the people have been told.

Could there be anything but widespread misery, where a privileged few controlled a nation's wealth, while millions labored for a pittance, and millions more were desperate for want of employment?

When the Lord calls me home, whenever that may be, I will leave with the greatest love for this county of ours and eternal optimism for its future.

I'm beginning to wonder if the symbol of the United States pretty soon isn't going to be an ambassador with a flag under his arm climbing into an escape helicopter.

We can't build a safer world with honorable intentions and good will alone. Achieving the fundamental goals our nation seeks in world affairs - peace, human rights, economics progress national independence and international stability - means supporting our friends and defending our interests.

The founders of the United Nations sought to replace a world at war with a world of civilized order. They hoped that a world of relentless conflict would give way to a new era, one where freedom from violence prevailed.... But the awful truth is that the use of violence for political gain has become more, not less, widespread in the last decade.

With the right to bear arms comes a great responsibility to use caution and common sense on handgun purchases.

The family has always been the cornerstone of American society.

Everywhere we go, Nancy makes the world a little better.

We seek a constitutional amendment to permit voluntary school prayer. God should never have been expelled from America's classrooms in the first place.

The doctor begins to lose freedoms; it's like telling a lie, and one leads to another. First you decide that the doctor can have so many patients. They are equally divided among the various doctors by the government. But then the doctors aren't equally divided geographically, so a doctor decides he wants to practice in one town and the government has to say to him you can't live in that town, they already have enough doctors. You have to go someplace else. And from here it is only a short step to dictating where he will go.

Hope remains the highest reality, the age-old power.

Since the foundation of the State of Israel, the United States has stood by her and helped her to pursue security, peace, and economic growth. Our friendship is based on historic moral and strategic ties, as well as our shared dedication to democracy.

No longer must government be allowed to ride roughshod, absorbing the people's wealth, usurping their rights, and crushing their spirit.

Our principles were revolutionary. We began as a small, weak republic. But we survived. Our example inspired others, imperfectly at times, but it inspired them nevertheless. This constitutional republic, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, prospered and grew strong. To this day, America is still the abiding alternative to tyranny. That is our purpose in the world - nothing more and nothing less.

I sometimes think Adam and Eve were Russians. They didn't have a roof over their head, nothing to wear, but they had one apple between them and they thought that was Paradise.

The District of Columbia is one gigantic ear.