Ronald Reagan: Doing

“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.”

Ronald Reagan

Leadership , People

“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.”

Ronald Reagan

Remarks in Arlington, Virginia http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1987/092587b.htm (25 September 1987)
1980s, Second term of office (1985–1989)

Understanding , Reading

“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”

Ronald Reagan

Men , Children , Freedom

“Freedom is the right to question and change the established way of doing things.”

Ronald Reagan

Moscow State University http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1988/053188b.htm (31 May 1988)
1980s, Second term of office (1985–1989)
Context: Freedom is the right to question and change the established way of doing things. It is the continuous revolution of the marketplace. It is the understanding that allows to recognize shortcomings and seek solutions.

Way , Question , Freedom , Change

“We're at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars, and it's been said if we lose that war, and in so doing lose this way of freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening.”

Ronald Reagan

1960s, A Time for Choosing (1964)
Context: As for the peace that we would preserve, I wonder who among us would like to approach the wife or mother whose husband or son has died in South Vietnam and ask them if they think this is a peace that should be maintained indefinitely. Do they mean peace, or do they mean we just want to be left in peace? There can be no real peace while one American is dying some place in the world for the rest of us. We're at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars, and it's been said if we lose that war, and in so doing lose this way of freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening. Well I think it's time we ask ourselves if we still know the freedoms that were intended for us by the Founding Fathers.

War , Way , History , Star

“I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing.”

Ronald Reagan

The third and fourth sentences are a paraphrase of a sentence by G. K. Chesterton: "I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act." Generally Speaking, "On Holland' (1928).
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985), First Inaugural address (1981)
Context: It is time for us to realize that we're too great a nation to limit ourselves to small dreams. We're not, as some would have us believe, doomed to an inevitable decline. I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing. So, with all the creative energy at our command, let us begin an era of national renewal. Let us renew our determination, our courage, and our strength. And let us renew our faith and our hope. We have every right to dream heroic dreams. Those who say that we're in a time when there are no heroes, they just don't know where to look.

Fate

“The dreams of people may differ, but everybody wants their dreams to come true. And America, above all places, gives us the freedom to do that.”

Ronald Reagan

On growing up in a small town, as quoted in Who was Ronald Reagan? (2004) by Joyce Milton, p. 9
Post-presidency (1989–2004)
Context: You get to know people as individuals. The dreams of people may differ, but everybody wants their dreams to come true. And America, above all places, gives us the freedom to do that.

People , Dreams , Freedom

“There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn't mind who gets the credit.”

Ronald Reagan

Reagan reportedly displayed a plaque with this proverbial aphorism on his Oval Office desk (Michael Reagan, The New Reagan Revolution (2010), p. 177). Harry S. Truman is reported to have repeated versions of the aphorism on several occasions. This exact wording was in wide circulation in the 1960s, and the earliest known variant has been attributed to Benjamin Jowett (1817–1893).
Misattributed

“Let me offer lesson number one about America: All great change in America begins at the dinner table. So, tomorrow night in the kitchen I hope the talking begins. And children, if your parents haven't been teaching you what it means to be an American, let 'em know and nail 'em on it. That would be a very American thing to do.”

Ronald Reagan

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

Children , Hope , Parent , Change

“I have never given a litmus test to anyone that I have appointed to the bench…. I feel very strongly about those social issues, but I also place my confidence in the fact that the one thing that I do seek are judges that will interpret the law and not write the law.”

Ronald Reagan

Interview with LA Times http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1986/62386e.htm (23 June 1986)
1980s, Second term of office (1985–1989)
Context: I have never given a litmus test to anyone that I have appointed to the bench.... I feel very strongly about those social issues, but I also place my confidence in the fact that the one thing that I do seek are judges that will interpret the law and not write the law. We've had too many examples in recent years of courts and judges legislating. They're not interpreting what the law says and whether someone has violated it or not. In too many instances, they have been actually legislating by legal decree what they think the law should be, and that I don't go for. And I think that the two men that we're just talking about here, Rehnquist and Scalia, are interpreters of the Constitution and the law.

Law , Feeling , Confidence

“Never let the things you can't do, stop you from doing what you can.”

Ronald Reagan

“Trees cause more pollution than automobiles do.”

Ronald Reagan

Tree

“I have a feeling that we are doing better in the war [in Vietnam] than the people have been told.”

Ronald Reagan

As quoted in Los Angeles Times (16 October 1967)
1960s

War , People , Feeling

“The doctor begins to lose freedom.... First you decide that the doctor can have so many patients. They are equally divided among the various doctors by the government. But then doctors aren’t equally divided geographically. So a doctor decides he wants to practice in one town and the government has to say to him, you can't live in that town. They already have enough doctors. You have to go someplace else. And from here it's only a short step to dictating where he will go.... All of us can see what happens once you establish the precedent that the government can determine a man's working place and his working methods, determine his employment. From here it's a short step to all the rest of socialism, to determining his pay. And pretty soon your son won't decide, when he's in school, where he will go or what he will do for a living. He will wait for the government to tell him where he will go to work and what he will do.”

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine (1961 LP)
1960s

School , Freedom , Waiting

“I do not believe in taking away the right of the citizen to own guns for sporting, hunting and so forth, or for home defense. But I do believe that an AK-47, a machine gun, is not a sporting weapon.”

Ronald Reagan

At the University of Southern California (February 6, 1989) when asked his opinion on gun control after the January 17, 1989 Cleveland Elementary School shooting that killed five schoolchildren in Stockton ([Becklund, Laurie, `Saddled Up' Reagan Vows to Speak on Issues, Los Angeles Times, February 7, 1989, 1]).
Post-presidency (1989–2004)

Home , Sport

“George [H. W. Bush] brought his ne'er-do-well son around this morning and asked me to find the kid a job. Not the political one who lives in Florida. The one who hangs around here all the time looking shiftless. This so-called kid is already almost 40 and has never had a real job.”

Ronald Reagan

Cited to a Reagan diary entry in 1986, but actually from a parody written by Michael Kinsley in June 2007.
Misattributed

Time

“However, our task is far from over. Our friends in the other party will never forgive us for our success, and are doing everything in their power to rewrite history. Listening to the liberals, you'd think that the 1980's were the worst period since the Great Depression, filled with suffering and despair. I don't know about you, but I'm getting awfully tired of the whining voices from the White House these days. They're claiming there was a decade of greed and neglect, but you and I know better than that. We were there.”

Ronald Reagan

Speech at 1994 Gala for 83rd Birthday http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/P/rr40/speeches/gala_speech.htm (3 February 1994)
Post-presidency (1989–2004)

History , Forgiveness , Thinking , Suffering

“When the commander in chief of a nation finds it necessary to order employees of the government or agencies of the government to do things that would technically break the law, he has to be able to declare it legal in order for them to do that.”

Ronald Reagan

Response to the Frost-Nixon interviews on the Watergate scandal, UPI (21 May 1977)
1970s