“I've always believed that a lot of the trouble in the world would disappear if we were talking to each other instead of about each other.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“You and I are told increasingly that we have to choose between a left or a right. There is only an up or down: up to man's age-old dream -- the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order -- or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. And regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.”
―
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
“I think my political transformation began with my exposure to the business-as-usual attitude of many civil service bureaucrats during the war; then came the attempted Communist take-over of the picture business, which a lot of my liberal friends refused to admit ever happened; next, I had a brief experience living in a country that promised the kind of womb-to-tomb utopian benevolence a lot of these liberal friends wanted to bring to America. In 1949, I spent four months in England filming The Hasty Heart while the Labor Party was in power. I saw firsthand how the welfare state sapped incentive to work from many people in a wonderful and dynamic country.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Later, several members of the Communist Party in Hollywood who had been involved in the attempted takeover went public and described in intimate detail how Moscow was trying to take over the picture business.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“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!”
―
Ronald Reagan
“I don't believe in a government that protects us from ourselves.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Never let the things you can't do, stop you from doing what you can.”
―
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
“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
“The government is like a baby's
alimentary canal, with a happy
appetite at one end and no
responsibility at the other.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“The federal government must and shall quit this business of relief. Continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber.”
―
Ronald Reagan
“Our government needs the church, because only those humble enough to admit they're sinners can bring democracy the tolerance it requires to survive”
―
Ronald Reagan
“I know in my heart that man is good. That what is right will always eventually triumph. And there's purpose and worth to each and every life.”
―
Ronald Reagan
