“The first rule of a bureaucracy is to protect the bureaucracy. If the people running the welfare program had let their clientele find other ways of making a living, that would have reduced their importance and their budget.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“If history teaches anything, it teaches that self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“We have been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. But if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else?
―
Ronald Reagan
“Many countries of the world, I said, had constitutions, but in almost every case they were documents in which governments told their people what they could do. The United States had a constitution, I said, that was different from all the others because in it the people tell their government what it can do. Its three most important words are “We the people,” its most important principle, freedom.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“In this springtime of hope, some lights seem eternal; America's is.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Republicans believe every day is the Fourth of July, but the democrats believe every day is April 15.”
―
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
“One legislator accused me of having a 19th-century attitude on law and order. That is a totally false charge. I have an 18th-century attitude. That is when the Founding Fathers made it clear that the safety of law-abiding citizens should be one of the government’s primary concerns.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Our natural, inalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation from government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“A tree's a tree. How many more do you need to look at? ”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Status quo, you know, is Latin for 'the mess we're in'.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Inflation is as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber and as deadly as a hit man.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“What of all the entrepreneurs that fail? Well, many do, particularly the successful ones; often several times. And if you ask them the secret of their success, they’ll tell you it’s all that they learned in their struggles along the way; yes, it’s what they learned from failing.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Let us not forget who we are. Drug abuse is a repudiation of everything America is.”
―
Ronald Reagan
