“Liberty has never come from government,” Woodrow Wilson, one of FDR’s predecessors and another Democrat, said. “The history of liberty is the history of limitation of government’s power, not the increase of it.” Somewhere along the line, the liberal Democrats forgot this and changed their party. It was no longer the party of Thomas Jefferson or Woodrow Wilson. The competitive free enterprise system has given us the greatest standard of living in the world, produced generation after generation of technical wizards who consistently lead the world in invention and innovation, and has provided unlimited opportunities enabling industrious Americans from the most humble of backgrounds to climb to the top of the ladder of success. By 1960, I realized the real enemy wasn’t big business, it was big government.
―
Ronald Reagan
“When you can't make them see the light, make them feel the heat.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“The taxpayer: That’s someone who works for the federal government but doesn’t have to take the civil service examination.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Together, let us make this a new beginning. Let us make a commitment to care for the needy, to teach our children the values and the virtues handed down to us by our families, to have the courage to defend those values and the willingness to sacrifice for them. Accepting Republican nomination, Detroit, July 17, 1980”
―
Ronald Reagan
“If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“If there's one observation that rings true in today's changing world, it is that freedom and peace go hand in hand.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“aren’t lazy or unwilling to work: they just don’t know how to free themselves from the welfare security blanket.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“We do more for the under developed nations than anyone in the world but they act as if we’re out to destroy them and they never say boo to the Soviets.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Usually at summit conferences, the real work is done in advance by diplomats and specialists on each side who, based on guidance from their superiors, do the spadework and work out any agreements that are to be signed at the meeting, after which the top leaders come in and preside over the formalities.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“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
“I'm a gooey, gushy gumdrop bullshitty drop bombs on Russia! ride a horse ...”
―
Ronald Reagan
“There probably isn’t any undertaking on earth short of assuring the national security that can’t be handled more efficiently by the forces of private enterprise than by the federal government.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“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.”
―
Ronald Reagan