Ronald Reagan

Politics I supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.

We have the duty to protect the life of an unborn child.

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.

Democracy is worth dying for because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man.

If the federal government had been around when the Creator was putting His hand to this state Indiana wouldn't be here. It'd still be waiting for an environmental impact statement.

I never drink coffee at lunch. I find it keeps me awake for the afternoon.

We are never defeated unless we give up on God.

Let us not forget who we are. Drug abuse is a repudiation of everything America is.

A people free to choose will always choose peace.

There are no great limits to growth because there are no limits of human intelligence imagination and wonder.

Violence has been Nicaragua's most important export to the world.

I favor the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and it must be enforced at gunpoint if necessary.

If we love our country we should also love our countrymen.

Information is the oxygen of the modern age. It seeps through the walls topped by barbed wire it wafts across the electrified borders.

Politics is just like show business. You have a hell of an opening coast for a while and then have a hell of a close.

Of the four wars in my lifetime none came about because the U.S. was too strong.

If the Soviet Union let another political party come into existence they would still be a one-party state because everybody would join the other party.

We can't help everyone but everyone can help someone.

Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.

Heroes may not be braver than anyone else. They're just braver five minutes longer.

Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book.

To sit back hoping that someday some way someone will make things right is to go on feeding the crocodile hoping he will eat you last - but eat you he will.

When you can't make them see the light make them feel the heat.

No mother would ever willingly sacrifice her sons for territorial gain for economic advantage for ideology.

Today if you invent a better mousetrap the government comes along with a better mouse.

You know if I listened to Michael Dukakis long enough I would be convinced we're in an economic downturn and people are homeless and going without food and medical attention and that we've got to do something about the unemployed.

One way to make sure crime doesn't pay would be to let the government run it.

The thought of being President frightens me and I do not think I want the job.

There are no constraints on the human mind no walls around the human spirit no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect.

Governments tend not to solve problems only to rearrange them.

Government always finds a need for whatever money it gets.

We can not play innocents abroad in a world that is not innocent.

To paraphrase Winston Churchill I did not take the oath I have just taken with the intention of presiding over the dissolution of the world's strongest economy.

I am not worried about the deficit. It is big enough to take care of itself.

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

We should measure welfare's success by how many people leave welfare not by how many are added.

Before I refuse to take your questions I have an opening statement.

Going to college offered me the chance to play football for four more years.

It's true hard work never killed anybody but I figure why take the chance?

We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.

I've never been able to understand why a Republican contributor is a 'fat cat' and a Democratic contributor of the same amount of money is a 'public-spirited philanthropist'.

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. It is a weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have.

Facts are stubborn things.

Unemployment insurance is a pre-paid vacation for freeloaders.

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

Government does not solve problems, it subsidizes them.

Without God democracy will not and cannot long endure.

Surround yourself with the best people you can find delegate authority and don't interfere as long as the policy you've decided upon is being carried out.

People do not make wars, governments do.

It's silly talking about how many years we will have to spend in the jungles of Vietnam when we could pave the whole country and put parking stripes on it and still be home by Christmas.