“At our one local movie theater, blacks and whites had to sit apart—the blacks in the balcony. My mother and father urged my brother and me to bring home our black playmates, to consider them equals, and to respect the religious views of our friends, whatever they were. My brother’s best friend was black, and when they went to the movies, Neil sat with him in the balcony. My mother always taught us: “Treat thy neighbor as you would want your neighbor to treat you,” and “Judge everyone by how they act, not what they are.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Here's my strategy on the Cold War: we win, they lose.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Jefferson repeatedly said that the best government was the smallest government, that “governments are not the masters of the people, but the servants of the people governed.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Information is the oxygen of the modern age. It seeps through the walls topped by barbed wire, it wafts across the electrified borders. ... The Goliath of totalitarianism will be brought down by the David of the microchip.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Socialism only works in two places: Heaven where they don’t need it and hell where they already have it.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“I'm a gooey, gushy gumdrop bullshitty drop bombs on Russia! ride a horse ...”
―
Ronald Reagan
“The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“The government is like a baby's
alimentary canal, with a happy
appetite at one end and no
responsibility at the other.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“I'm no linguist, but I have been told that in the Russian language, there isn't even a word for freedom.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“I’d learned a few lessons about negotiating: You’re unlikely to ever get all you want; you’ll probably get more of what you want if you don’t issue ultimatums and leave your adversary room to maneuver; you shouldn’t back your adversary into a corner, embarrass him, or humiliate him; and sometimes the easiest way to get some things done is for the top people to do them alone and in private.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“For more than five years, I’d made little progress with my efforts at quiet diplomacy—for one thing, the Soviet leaders kept dying on me.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“MIRACLE OF LIFE 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. The Quest for Peace, the Cause of Freedom, 2005”
―
Ronald Reagan
“When Carter finally agreed to a debate, the date was set for October 28, one week before the election, and we were delighted. The debate went well for me and may have turned on only four little words. They popped out of my mouth after Carter claimed that I had once opposed Medicare benefits for Social Security recipients. It wasn’t true and I said so: “There you go again . . .”
―
Ronald Reagan
