“The glass is not half empty; it is half full.”

“If you think you can - you can!”

“If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth.”

“Live simply, love generously, care deeply, speak kindly, leave the rest to God.”

“Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women.”

“How do you tell a Communist? Well, it’s someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It’s someone who understands Marx and Lenin.”

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

“Government is like a baby: an alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.”

“There is no humanity or charity in destroying self-reliance, dignity, and self-respect.”

“Ran “Inchon”—it is a brutal but gripping picture about the Korean War and for once we’re the good guys & the Communists are the villains. The producer was Japanese or Korean which probably explains the preceding sentence.” 

“I know this issue is very controversial. But unless and until it can be proven that an unborn child is not a human being, can we justify assuming without proof that it isn’t? No one has yet offered such proof; indeed, all the evidence is to the contrary. We should rise above bitterness and reproach, and if Americans could come together in a spirit of understanding and helping, then we could find positive solutions to the tragedy of abortion.”

“I think growing up in a small town is a good foundation for anyone who decides to enter politics. You get to know people as individuals, not as blocs or members of special interest groups.”

“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.”

“freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. we did'nt pass it to our children in the bloodstream. it must be fought for, protected, and handed on to them to do the same; or, one day, we will spending our sunset years telling our children and our childrens children, what it was once like in the united states where men were free.”

“Status quo, you know, is Latin for 'the mess we're in'.”