Top 1117 Quotes & Sayings by Ronald Reagan - Page 18

Could there be a better answer to the stupidity of Karl Marx than millions of workers individually sharing in the ownership of the means of production.

Our goals are the same as those of the U.N.'s founders, who sought to replace a world at war with one where the rule of law would prevail, where human rights were honored, where development would blossom, where conflict would give way to freedom from violence.

Over hundred years ago Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act. There was wide distribution of land and they didn't confiscate anyone's privately owned land... We need an industrial Homestead Act.

I want to talk about political and economic fairy tales.

Most of my dreams came true.

America's economic strength depends on industry's ability to improve productivity and quality and to remain on the cutting edge of technology, and that's why the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award is so important.

The little dictator who went to Moscow in his green fatigues to receive a bear hug did not forsake the doctrine of Lenin when he returned to the West and appeared in a two-piece suit. (On Daniel Ortega Saavedra)

I hope Americans will read and study the Bible in the coming year. It's my firm belief that the enduring values, as I say, presented in its pages have a great meaning for each of us and for our nation.

Our economic assistance must be carefully targeted, and must make maximum use of the energy and efforts of the private sector... Economic freedom is the world's mightiest engine for abundance and social justice... Developing countries need to be encouraged to experiment with a growing variety of arrangements for profit sharing and expanded capital ownership.

The Congress of the United States, in recognition of the unique contribution of the Bible in shaping the history and character of this Nation, and so many of its citizens, has by Senate Joint Resolution 165 authorized and requested the President to designate the year 1983 as the 'Year of the Bible.'

You can achieve anything in politics provided that you let someone else take the credit.

As for the enemies of freedom, those who are potential adversaries, they will be reminded that peace is the highest aspiration of the American people. We will negotiate for it, sacrifice for it, we will not surrender for it - now or ever.

Don't let anyone tell you that America's best days are behind her - that the American spirit has been vanquished. We've seen it triumph too often in our lives to stop believing in it now.

Our goal is peace. We can gain that peace by strengthening our alliances, by speaking candidly about the dangers before us, by assuring potential adversaries of our seriousness, by actively pursuing every chance of honest and fruitful negotiation.

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.

For too long, too many people dependent on Social Security have been cruelly frightened by individuals seeking political gain through demagoguery and outright falsehood, and this must stop.

Labor force needs and economic conditions are disregarded in our policies. Many aspects of our current policies and procedures are patently wrong. For example, legal immigration has almost no link to U.S. employment needs or economic conditions.

Some may try to tell us that this is the end of an era. But what they overlook is that in America, every day is a new beginning. For this is the land that has never become, but is always in the act of becoming.

The Bible tells us there will be a time for peace. But, so far in this century, mankind has failed to find it.

I think there are some things ... that may even be distorted in the practice, such as some affirmative action programs becoming quota systems. And I'm old enough to remember when quotas existed in the United States for the purpose of discrimination, and I don't want to see that happen again.

America's best days lie ahead. You ain't seen nothing yet.

Seventy-five years ago I was born in Tampico, Illinois, in a little flat above the bank building. We didn't have any other contact with the bank than that.

We didn't discover our values in a poll taken a week before the convention.

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.

We're not just discussing limits on a further increase of nuclear weapons; we seek, instead, to reduce their number. We seek the total elimination one day of nuclear weapons from the face of the Earth.

I remain California-bound

The Federalist Society is changing the culture of our nation's law schools. You are returning the values and concepts of law as our founders understood them to scholarly dialogue, and through that dialogue, to our legal institutions.

Meanwhile, what about the workers in those state monopolies that are being put up for sale? I am reminded of a technique for employee ownership that has worked well for many U.S. companies. It goes by various names, but the best known is "Employee Stock Ownership Program," or ESOP.

Through the history of our nation, Americans have always extended their hands in gestures of assistance.

There you go again. When I opposed Medicare, there was another piece of legislation meeting the same problem before the Congress. I happened to favor the other piece of legislation and thought that it would be better for the senior citizens to provide better care than the one that was finally passed.

If you owe the bank $10,000 you have a problem. If you owe the bank $10,000,000 they have a problem. After all is said and done, more is said than done. Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

We should never fear to negotiate, nor negotiate from fear.

I have decided that whatever time I may have left is left for Him.

A drastic reduction in the deficit...will take place in the fiscal year '82.

I sometimes think if someone appealed the Ten Commandments to some of our courts, they would rule - 'Thou shalt not, unless you feel strongly to the contrary'.

I have seen the rise and fall of Nazi tyranny, the subsequent cold war and the nuclear nightmare that for fifty years haunted the dreams of children everywhere. During that time my generation defeated totalitarianism. As a result, your world is poised for better tomorrows. What will you do on your journey?

You get a little stir crazy during the week.

Our country is great because it is built on principles of self-reliance, opportunity, innovation, and compassion for others.

Environmental extremists ... wouldn't let you build a house unless it looked like a bird's nest.

In some dim beginning, man created the institution of government as a convenience for himself. And, ever since that time, government has been doing its best to become an inconvenience.

Only our deep moral values and our strong social institutions can hold back that jungle and restrain the darker impulses of human nature.

State problems should involve state solutions.

The criminal element now calculates that crime really does pay.

Could there be anything resembling a free enterprise economy, if wealth and property were concentrated in the hands of a few, while the great majority owned little more than the shirts on their backs?

The people of Central America - and, in a broader sense, the entire developing world - need to know first-hand that freedom and opportunity are not just for the elite, but the birthright of every citizen; that property is not just something enjoyed by a few, but can be owned by any individual who works hard and makes correct decisions.

I usually never walk by a microphone.

...100% of what is collected is absorbed solely by interest on the Federal Debt...all individual income tax revenues are gone before one nickel is spent on the services taxpayers expect from government.

As long as there are guns, the individual that wants a gun for a crime is going to have one and going to get it.

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

It's not fair to say that Congress spends money like a drunk sailor. At least the sailor is spending his own money!

All of us should remember that the federal government is not some mysterious institution comprised of buildings, files and paper. The people are the government. What we create we ought to be able to control.

In opening our hearts, we hope this might promote greater awareness of this condition. Perhaps it will encourage a clearer understanding of the individuals and families who are affected by it.

Deep religious beliefs stemming from the Old and New Testaments of the Bible inspired many of the early settlers of our country, providing them with the strength, character, convictions, and faith necessary to withstand great hardship and danger in this new and rugged land. These shared beliefs helped forge a sense of common purpose among the widely dispersed colonies - a sense of community which laid the foundation for the spirit of nationhood that was to develop in later decades.

I think people have a need to feel good about the country they live in, but what's happening, I think, is that that need - which is a good thing - is getting manipulated and exploited.

The founders of the United Nations expected that member nations would behave and vote as individuals after they had weighed the merits of an issue - rather like a great, global town meeting. The emergence of blocks and the polarization of the United Nations undermine all that this organization initially valued.

I've long believed one of the mainsprings of our own liberty has been the widespread ownership of property among our people and the expectation that anyone's child, even from the humblest of families, could grow up to own a business or corporation.

I know that some believe that voluntary prayer in schools should be restricted to a moment of silence. We already have the right to remain silent - we can take our Fifth Amendment.

Supporters of this fundamental change in immigration policy say we need to import more well-educated talent if we're to stay competitive. But exactly whose competitiveness are we talking about? Not the competitiveness of, say, American-born computer engineers. Adjusted for inflation, their earnings haven't gone anywhere in years. That's in part because American companies have been sending so much of their high-tech work abroad. Bringing more foreign-born engineers here under an expanded H1-B visa program, or a point system for that matter, will just depress wages even further.

I don't want to do a TV series. It's no fun working from dawn to sunset every day. An occasional movie would be fine, and then I'll see what might develop on the political front.

I've always believed that we were, each of us, put here for a reason, that there is a plan, somehow a divine plan for all of us. I know now that whatever days are left to me belong to him.