Ronald Reagan Quotes

president of the United States from 1981 to 1989 and actor (1911-2004)

Add quote

Ronald Wilson Reagan (6 February 1911 – 5 June 2004) was an American politician and actor, who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. Prior to his presidency, he served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 to 1975, following a career as a Hollywood actor and union leader. He was the husband of Jane Wyman (1940–1949) and Nancy Davis (married in 1952).

From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Birth Name: Ronald Wilson Reagan

Also Known As: Dutch • The Gipper • The Great Communicator

Alternative Names: President Reagan • President Ronald Reagan • Ronald W. Reagan • Ronald W Reagan • R. W. Reagan

From Wikidata (CC0)

Showing quotes in randomized order to avoid selection bias. Click Popular for most popular quotes.

There are no such things as limits to growth, because there
are no limits to the human capacity for intelligence,
imagination, and wonder.

All great change in America begins at the dinner table.

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.

I spoke to ears that refused to hear.

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

Socialists ignore the side of man that is of the spirit. They can provide shelter, fill your belly with bacon and beans, treat you when you are ill, all the things that are guaranteed to a prisoner or a slave. They don't understand that we dream — yes, even of some time owning a yacht.

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.

One legislator accused me of having a 19th-century attitude on law and order. That is a totally false charge. I have an 18th-century attitude. That is when the Founding Fathers made it clear that the safety of law-abiding citizens should be one of the government’s primary concerns.

The future doesn't belong to the light-hearted. It belongs to the brave.

A nation that cannot control its borders is not a nation.

Thomas Jefferson dreamed of a land of small farmers, of shop owners and merchants. Abraham Lincoln signed into law the “Homestead Act” that ensured that the great western prairies of America would be the realm of independent, property-owning citizens-a mightier guarantee of freedom is difficult to imagine.
I know we have with us today employee-owners from La Perla Plantation in Guatemala. They have a stake in the place where they work and a stake in the freedom of their country. When Communist guerrillas came, these proud owners protected what belonged to them. They drove the Communists off their land and I know you join me in saluting their courage.
In this century, the United States has evolved into a great industrial power. Even though they are now, by and large, employees, our working people still benefit from property ownership. Most of our citizens own the homes in which they reside. In the marketplace, they benefit from direct and indirect business ownership. There are currently close to 10 million self-employed workers in the U.S.-nearly 9 percent of total civilian employment. And, millions more hope to own a business some day. Furthermore, over 47 million individuals reap the rewards of free enterprise through stock ownership in the vast number of companies listed on U. S. stock exchanges.
I can't help but believe that in the future we will see in the United States and throughout the western world an increasing trend toward the next logical step, employee ownership. It is a path that befits a free people.

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.

If you serve a child a rotten hamburger in America, federal, state, and local agencies will investigate you, summon you, close you down, whatever. But if you provide a child with a rotten education, nothing happens, except that you're liable to be given more money to do it with. Well, we've discovered that money alone isn't the answer.

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.

You and I, as individuals, can, by borrowing, live beyond our means, but for only a limited period of time. Why, then, should we think that collectively, as a nation, we're not bound by that same limitation? We must act today in order to preserve tomorrow.