“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.”

“No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!”

“I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience.”

“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.”

“You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery.”

“Some people wonder all their lives if they've made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem.”

“Morality in the long run aligned with strategy.”

“My parents constantly drummed into me the importance of judging people as individuals. There was no more grievous sin at our household than a racial slur or other evidence of religious or racial intolerance. A lot of it, I think, was because my dad had learned what discrimination was like firsthand. He’d grown up in an era when some stores still had signs at their door saying, NO DOGS OR IRISHMEN ALLOWED. When my brother and I were growing up, there were still ugly tumors of racial bigotry in much of America, including the corner of Illinois where we lived. 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.” Once my father checked into a hotel during a shoe-selling trip and a clerk told him: “You’ll like it here, Mr. Reagan, we don’t permit a Jew in the place.” My father, who told us the story later, said he looked at the clerk angrily and picked up his suitcase and left. “I’m a Catholic,” he said. “If it’s come to the point where you won’t take Jews, then some day you won’t take me either.” Because it was the only hotel in town, he spent the night in his car during a winter blizzard and I think it may have led to his first heart attack.”

“The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.”

“Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong.”

“If there's one observation that rings true in today's changing world, it is that freedom and peace go hand in hand.”

“Government always finds a need for whatever money it gets.

“Before I refuse to take your questions, I have an opening statement. ” 

“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.” 

“The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things.”