1. Quotes
  2. Authors
  3. Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan Quotes
page 5

Ronald Wilson Reagan was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th President of the United States from 1981 to 1989. Before his presidency, he was the 33rd Governor of California, from 1967 to 1975, after a career as a Hollywood actor and union leader.

Raised in a poor family in small towns of northern Illinois, Reagan graduated from Eureka College in 1932 and worked as a sports announcer on several regional radio stations. After moving to Hollywood in 1937, he became an actor and starred in a few major productions. Reagan was twice elected President of the Screen Actors Guild—the labor union for actors—where he worked to root out Communist influence. In the 1950s, he moved into television and was a motivational speaker at General Electric factories. Reagan had always been a Democrat until 1962 when he became a conservative and switched to the Republican Party. In 1964, Reagan's speech, "A Time for Choosing", supported Barry Goldwater's foundering presidential campaign and earned him national attention as a new conservative spokesman. Building a network of supporters, he was elected Governor of California in 1966. As governor, Reagan raised taxes, turned a state budget deficit to a surplus, challenged the protesters at the University of California, ordered National Guard troops in during a period of protest movements in 1969, and was re-elected in 1970. He twice ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for the U.S. presidency in 1968 and 1976; four years later, he easily won the nomination outright, becoming the oldest elected U.S. president up to that time, defeating incumbent Jimmy Carter in 1980.

Entering the presidency in 1981, Reagan implemented sweeping new political and economic initiatives. His supply-side economic policies, dubbed "Reaganomics", advocated tax rate reduction to spur economic growth, control of the money supply to curb inflation, economic deregulation, and reduction in government spending. In his first term he survived an assassination attempt, spurred the War on Drugs, and fought public sector labor. Over his two terms, the economy saw a reduction of inflation from 12.5% to 4.4%, and an average annual growth of real GDP of 3.4; while Reagan did enact cuts in domestic discretionary spending, tax cuts and increased military spending contributed to increased federal outlays overall, even after adjustment for inflation. During his re-election bid, Reagan campaigned on the notion that it was "Morning in America", winning a landslide in 1984 with the largest electoral college victory in American history. Foreign affairs dominated his second term, including ending of the Cold War, the bombing of Libya, and the Iran–Contra affair. Publicly describing the Soviet Union as an "evil empire", and during his famous speech at the Brandenburg Gate, President Reagan challenged Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall!". He transitioned Cold War policy from détente to rollback, by escalating an arms race with the USSR while engaging in talks with Gorbachev, which culminated in the INF Treaty, shrinking both countries' nuclear arsenals. Reagan's presidency came during the decline of the Soviet Union and just ten months after the end of his term, the Berlin Wall fell, Germany reunified the following year, and on December 26, 1991, nearly three years after he left office, the Soviet Union collapsed.

When Reagan left office in 1989, he held an approval rating of sixty-eight percent, matching those of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and later Bill Clinton, as the highest ratings for departing presidents in the modern era. He was the first president since Dwight D. Eisenhower to serve two full terms, after a succession of five prior presidents did not, some under unusual circumstances. Although he had planned an active post-presidency, Reagan disclosed in 1994 that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease earlier that year. He appeared publicly for the last time at the funeral of Richard Nixon. He died ten years later in 2004 at the age of 93. Reagan had the third-longest life out of all the presidents, after George H. W. Bush and Gerald Ford. An icon among Republicans, he is viewed favorably in historian rankings of U.S. presidents, and his tenure constituted a realignment toward conservative policies in the U.S.

✵ 6. February 1911 – 5. June 2004   •   Other names Ronald Regan, Ronald Wilson Reagan
Ronald Reagan photo
Ronald Reagan: 264   quotes 387   likes

Ronald Reagan Quotes

“One hundred nations in the UN have not agreed with us on just about everything that's come before them, where we're involved, and it didn't upset my breakfast at all.”

Ronald Reagan

Reacting to international criticism of the US invasion of Grenada, during press conference http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1983/110383a.htm. (3 November 1983)
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)

“You'd be surprised how much being a good actor pays off.”

Ronald Reagan

Responding to a question from students at Shanghai's University of Fudan as to which experiences best prepared him for the presidency (30 April 1984), cited by Paul Slansky, The Clothes Have No Emperor
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)

“Admittedly there is a risk in any course we follow other than this [surrender], but every lesson in history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face — that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight and surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand — the ultimatum. And what then? When Nikita Khrushchev has told his people he knows what our answer will be? He has told them that we are retreating under the pressure of the Cold War, and someday when the time comes to deliver the final ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary because by that time we will have weakened from within spiritually, morally, and economically. He believes this because from our side he has heard voices pleading for "peace at any price" or "better Red than dead," or as one commentator put it, he would rather "live on his knees than die on his feet." And therein lies the road to war, because those voices don't speak for the rest of us. 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. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin — just in the face of this enemy?”

Ronald Reagan

1960s, A Time for Choosing (1964)

Life , War , People , Peace

“When the chips are down and the decisions are made as to who the candidates will be, then the 11th commandment prevails and everybody goes to work, and that is: Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican.”

Ronald Reagan

Remarks in New York City at a Reception for Delegates to the State Republican Convention http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1982/61782e.htm (17 June 1982), this is a restatement of "The Eleventh Commandment" by California Republican Party Chairman Gaylord Parkinson, which Reagan first used in 1966
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)

Decision

“Preservation of our environment is not a liberal or conservative challenge, it's common sense.”

Ronald Reagan

State of the Union address http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=40205 (25 January 1984)
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)

Sense

“The real question today is not when human life begins, but, What is the value of human life?”

Ronald Reagan

1980s, First term of office (1981–1985), Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation (1983)

Life , Question

“We don't intend to turn the Republican Party over to the traitors in the battle just ended. We will have no more of those candidates who are pledged to the same goals of our opposition and who seek our support. Turning the party over to the so-called moderates wouldn't make any sense at all.”

Ronald Reagan

As quoted in Exit with Honor: The Life and Presidency of Ronald Reagan https://books.google.com/books?id=qPfqBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA64(2015) by William E Pemberton. p. 64
Post-presidency (1989–2004)

Support , Sense

“Not to the extent of throwing up my hands and saying, "Well, it's all over." No. I think whichever generation and at whatever time, when the time comes, the generation that is there, I think will have to go on doing what they believe is right.”

Ronald Reagan

Answer to question about whether he's mused about Armageddon. Interview http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1983/120683c.htm for People magazine (12 June 1983)
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)

Thinking , Time

“The charge has been made that the United States has shipped weapons to Iran as ransom payment for the release of American hostages in Lebanon, that the United States undercut its allies and secretly violated American policy against trafficking with terrorists…. Those charges are utterly false…. We did not — repeat — did not trade weapons or anything else for hostages, nor will we.”

Ronald Reagan

television address (13 November 1986)
1980s, Second term of office (1985–1989)

Falseness

“Those who would trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state have told us that they have a utopian solution of peace without victory. They call their policy "accommodation." And they say if we only avoid any direct confrontation with the enemy, he will forget his evil ways and learn to love us. All who oppose them are indicted as warmongers.”

Ronald Reagan

1960s, A Time for Choosing (1964)

Love , Peace , Way , Freedom

“I'm not smart enough to lie.”

Ronald Reagan

Response when asked what qualified him to be President, as quoted in Ronald Reagan : The Power of Conviction and the Success of His Presidency (2003) by Peter J. Wallison, p. 167
Post-presidency (1989–2004)

Lie

“I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it and see it still.”

Ronald Reagan

1980s, Second term of office (1985–1989), Farewell Address (1989)

Life , God , People , Peace

“Yes, because for many years I was a Democrat.”

Ronald Reagan

Response to Sam Donaldson (September 1982), on whether he shared any blame for the ongoing recession
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)

“What we have found in this country, and maybe we're more aware of it now, is one problem that we've had, even in the best of times, and that is the people who are sleeping on the grates, the homeless who are homeless, you might say, by choice.”

Ronald Reagan

Defending himself against charges of callousness on Good Morning America(31 January 1984), cited by Paul Slansky, The Clothes Have No Emperor
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)

People , Problem , Sleep , Time

“Let's close the place down and see if anybody notices.”

Ronald Reagan

Comments made just before the United States federal government shutdowns of 1995 and 96, as quoted in and article by James C. Miller III, in The Wall Street Journal (18 October 1995), as discussed in Congress via the Congressional Record https://books.google.com/books?id=HH9KOKGZJJYC&pg=PA28413 by Phil Crane. p. 28413
Post-presidency (1989–2004)

“We cannot survive as a free nation when some men decide that others are not fit to live and should be abandoned to abortion or infanticide. My Administration is dedicated to the preservation of America as a free land, and there is no cause more important for preserving that freedom than affirming the transcendent right to life of all human beings, the right without which no other rights have any meaning.”

Ronald Reagan

1980s, First term of office (1981–1985), Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation (1983)

Life , Men , Freedom

“History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.”

Ronald Reagan

Address to the nation from the White House http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1984/11684a.htm (16 January 1984)
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)

War , History

“Late-term abortions, especially when the baby survives, but is then killed by starvation, neglect, or suffocation, show once again the link between abortion and infanticide. The time to stop both is now.”

Ronald Reagan

1980s, First term of office (1981–1985), Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation (1983)

Time , Baby

“Regrettably, we live at a time when some persons do not value all human life. They want to pick and choose which individuals have value.”

Ronald Reagan

1980s, First term of office (1981–1985), Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation (1983)

Life , Time , Personality

“I have spent most of my life as a Democrat. I recently have seen fit to follow another course. I believe that the issues confronting us cross party lines.”

Ronald Reagan

1960s, A Time for Choosing (1964)

Life

“Some people may still ask: Would the Soviets ever use their formidable military power? Well, again, can we afford to believe they won't? There is Afghanistan, and in Poland, the Soviets denied the will of the people and, in so doing, demonstrated to the world how their military power could also be used to intimidate.
The final fact is that the Soviet Union is acquiring what can only be considered an offensive military force. They have continued to build far more intercontinental ballistic missiles than they could possibly need simply to deter an attack. Their conventional forces are trained and equipped not so much to defend against an attack as they are to permit sudden, surprise offensives of their own.”

Ronald Reagan

1980s, First term of office (1981–1985), Address on the Strategic Defense Initiative (1983)

People , World , Training

“These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war.”

Ronald Reagan

Speech at Pointe du Hoc on the 40th Anniversary of D-Day http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1984/60684a.htm (6 June 1984)
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)

Men , War , Boy , Help

“The other day, someone told me the difference between a democracy and a people's democracy. It's the same difference between a jacket and a straitjacket.”

Ronald Reagan

Remarks at Human Rights Day event http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1986/121086a.htm (10 December 1986)
1980s, Second term of office (1985–1989)

People , Democracy

“I won a nickname, "The Great Communicator." But I never thought it was my style or the words I used that made a difference: It was the content. I wasn't a great communicator, but I communicated great things, and they didn't spring full bloom from my brow, they came from the heart of a great nation — from our experience, our wisdom, and our belief in principles that have guided us for two centuries. They called it the Reagan revolution. Well, I'll accept that, but for me it always seemed more like the great rediscovery, a rediscovery of our values and our common sense.”

Ronald Reagan

1980s, Second term of office (1985–1989), Farewell Address (1989)

Wisdom , Spring , Communication , Sense

“A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.”

Ronald Reagan

Attributed to Reagan from informal remarks to reporters 10 October 1984,and to students and faculty at St. John's University 28 March 1985.[citation needed] The statement was made a decade earlier by Gerald Ford in an address to a Joint Session of the Congress, 12 August 1974. It is sometimes attributed to Thomas Jefferson and Barry Goldwater.
Similar assertions have often been attributed to Barry Goldwater. Some of the inspiration for such expressions may lie in "The Criminality of the State" by Albert Jay Nock in American Mercury (March 1939) where he stated: "You get the same order of criminality from any State to which you give power to exercise it; and whatever power you give the State to do things for you carries with it the equivalent power to do things to you."
Misattributed
Variant: A government that is big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take everything you have.

“This fellow they've nominated claims he's the new Thomas Jefferson. Well let me tell you something; I knew Thomas Jefferson. He was a friend of mine and Governor… You're no Thomas Jefferson!”

Ronald Reagan

Republican National Convention http://65.126.3.86/reagan/html/reagan08_17_92.shtml (17 August 1992); (statement modeled after Lloyd Bentsen's jibe at Dan Quayle during debate in 1988)
Post-presidency (1989–2004)

“General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

Ronald Reagan

Speech at the Brandenburg Gate. (12 June 1987)
1980s, Second term of office (1985–1989)
Variant: General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.

Peace , Tear

“I hope you're all Republican.”

Ronald Reagan

Speaking to surgeons as he entered the operating room following a 1981 assassination attempt. http://www.rd.com/content/openContent.do?contentId=26804&pageIndex=1 To which Dr. Joseph Giordano replied, "We're all Republicans today." An alternative version has Reagan saying "Please tell me you're Republicans." (30 March 1981)
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)

Hope

“Too much SALT is bad for your health.”

Ronald Reagan
Health

“I’ve been frustrated and angered by the attempts to paint me as a racist and as lacking in compassion for the poor. On the one subject I was raised by a mother and father who instilled in me and my brother a hatred for bigotry and prejudice, long before there was such a thing as a civil rights movement. As for the poor, we were poor in an era when there were no government programs to turn to. I’m well aware of how lucky I’ve been since and how good the Lord has been to me.”

Ronald Reagan

As quoted in "Ronald Reagan and Race" https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/08/ronald-reagan-and-race-richard-nixon-tape/ (August 2019), by Jay Nordlinger, National Review
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)

Anger , Painting

“Prejudice is not a failing peculiar to one race, it can and does exist in people of every race and ethnic background. It takes individual effort to root it out of one’s heart. In my case my father and mother saw that it never got a start. I shall be forever grateful to them.”

Ronald Reagan

As quoted in "Ronald Reagan and Race" https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/08/ronald-reagan-and-race-richard-nixon-tape/ (August 2019), by Jay Nordlinger, National Review
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)

People , Heart , Effort

“Ben if only it were possible to look into each other’s hearts and minds, you would find no trace of prejudice or bigotry in mine. I know that’s hard for you to believe and that’s too bad because together we could do more for the people you represent than either of us can do alone.”

Ronald Reagan

As quoted in "Ronald Reagan and Race" https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/08/ronald-reagan-and-race-richard-nixon-tape/ (August 2019), by Jay Nordlinger, National Review
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)

Bad luck , People , Heart

“My first few years as governor were during the period when people talked of long hot summers to come. We had had the Watts riots just prior to my taking office and racial tensions were very high. Without informing the press, I traveled up and down the state meeting with minority groups and leaders, sometimes in private homes, sometimes in headquarters they had in various community projects. I wanted to know firsthand what their problems were, what was on their minds, and what we could do to change things.”

Ronald Reagan

As quoted in "Ronald Reagan and Race" https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/08/ronald-reagan-and-race-richard-nixon-tape/ (August 2019), by Jay Nordlinger, National Review
1970s

Home , People , Communication , Problem

“I realize there is a great lack of information about what I did as governor of California and it increases the farther east you go. As a result of this, I know that the minority community has an impression that I have little or no interest in their problems. When I became governor I discovered that after eight years of liberal Democratic rule in Sacramento, very little outside of rhetoric had been done for the minorities. The civil service regulations were such that it was virtually impossible for a black employee of state government to rise above the very lowest job levels. We got those rules changed.”

Ronald Reagan

As quoted in "Ronald Reagan and Race" https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/08/ronald-reagan-and-race-richard-nixon-tape/ (August 2019), by Jay Nordlinger, National Review
1970s

Problem , Change , Communication

“If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism.”

Ronald Reagan

I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals — if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is. Now, I can’t say that I will agree with all the things that the present group who call themselves Libertarians in the sense of a party say, because I think that like in any political movement there are shades, and there are libertarians who are almost over at the point of wanting no government at all or anarchy. I believe there are legitimate government functions. There is a legitimate need in an orderly society for some government to maintain freedom or we will have tyranny by individuals. The strongest man on the block will run the neighborhood. We have government to ensure that we don’t each one of us have to carry a club to defend ourselves. But again, I stand on my statement that I think that libertarianism and conservatism are traveling the same path.
Interview published in Reason (1 July 1975)
1970s

Soul , Heart

“If we fail to instruct our children in justice, religion and liberty, we will be condemning them to a world without virtue, a life in the twilight of a civilization, where the great truths have been forgotten.”

Ronald Reagan

[The Goals Program. How to Stay Motivated, Volume III, chapter 5, Zig Ziglar]
Attributed

Religion , Justice , Children , Truth

“Last night, I tell you, to watch that thing on television as I did. To see those, those monkeys from those African countries— damn them, they're still uncomfortable wearing shoes!”

Ronald Reagan

Source: In a phone call to Richard Nixon about a television clip which showed members of the Tanzanian delegation dancing on the UN floor, after the UN voted to recognize China and expel Taiwan. https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/white-house-tapes/013 Conversation 013-008 of the White House Tapes, 6:30, quoted in * 2019-07-30


The Atlantic note: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/ronald-reagans-racist-conversation-richard-nixon/595102/ and in Ronald Reagan called Africans at UN 'monkeys', tapes reveal https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49177034, 31 July 2019, BBC note: 1970s

Shoe , Night , Country

“If I still have time, I might add, Mr. Trewhitt, I might add that it was Seneca or it was Cicero, I don’t know which, that said, If it was not for the elders correcting the mistakes of the young, there would be no state.”

Ronald Reagan

Reagan followed up his previous reply with this comment to Baltimore Sun reporter Henry Trewhitt question on Regan´s age and ability to perform the duties as president Debate with Walter Mondale http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1984/102184b.htm (21 October 1984)
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)

Time

“Balancing the budget is like protecting your virtue , you have to learn how to say no.”

Ronald Reagan

Interview, The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson on 01/03/1975 as shown on YouTube The Tonight Show video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNmnmdtcdcg
1970s

Learning

“The demography of happiness, in this study the government found out that young people are happier than old people, and they found out that people that earn more are happier than people that earn less, and they found out that well people are happier than sick people… It took $249,000 to find out that it’s better to be rich, young and healthy than old, poor and sick.”

Ronald Reagan

On US government spending. Interview on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson on 01/03/1975 as shown on YouTube The Tonight Show video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNmnmdtcdcg
1970s

Happiness , People , Study

“Those mujahideen are freedom fighters. Those are people fighting for their own country and not wanting to become a satellite state of the Soviet Union, which came in and established a government of its choosing there, without regard to the feelings of the Afghans.”

Ronald Reagan

As quoted in REAGAN HINTING AT ARMS FOR AFGHAN REBELS https://web.archive.org/web/20150524080811/https://www.nytimes.com/1981/03/10/world/reagan-hinting-at-arms-for-afghan-rebels.html (10 March 1981)
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)

Freedom , People , Country , Fight

“If Fascism Ever Comes to America, It Will Come in the Name of Liberalism.”

Ronald Reagan

1975 interview https://www.cbsnews.com/news/reagan-the-60-minutes-interviews-1975-1989/ with journalist Mike Wallace. (Excerpts from full interview were broadcasted on 60 Minutes on December 14, 1975.)
1970s

“Conservation means freezing in the dark.”

Ronald Reagan

[David Suzuki's Green Guide, David Suzuki, David R. Boyd, https://books.google.com/books/about/David_Suzuki_s_Green_Guide.html?id=FgGcvxC0YpkC, Chapter 2: Home Smart Home, 2009] and elsewhere
Attributed