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Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911, - June 5, 2004) Actor, politician; 40th President of the United States of America, husband of (first wife) Jane Wyman , and Nancy Reagan.
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A Time for Choosing (October 27, 1964) This was a pre-recorded speech in support of the presidential campaign of Senator Barry Goldwater; often referred to as "The Speech" which launched Reagan's career as a politician. It is also known as "Rendezvous with Destiny" or "A Time for Choosing".
- 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.
- If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.
- You and I are told increasingly that we have to choose between a left or right, but I would like to suggest that there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down— up to a man's age-old dream; the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order— or down to the ant heap totalitarianism, and regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.
- They say we offer simple answers to complex problems. Well, perhaps there is a simple answer— not an easy answer— but simple.
- Variant that has often been quoted: They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong. There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right.
- The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well, it's a simple answer after all.
You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." There is a point beyond which they must not advance. This is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater's "peace through strength." Winston Churchill said that "the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits— not animals." And he said, "There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty."
- You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on Earth, or we will sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.
We will keep in mind and remember that Barry Goldwater has faith in us. He has faith that you and I have the ability and the dignity and the right to make our own decisions and determine our own destiny.
- If there has to be a bloodbath, then let's get it over with.
- On what to do about student protests at UC Berkeley. Quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle (May 15, 1969)
- Welfare's purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence.
- Los Angeles Times (January 7, 1970)
- If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. 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.
- from an interview published in Reason Magazine (July 01, 1975)
- If adults want to take such chances that is their business.
- In taped statement against marijuana use, he made this comment against marijuana prohibition. (August 1979) : Ronald Reagan's adopted son, Michael Reagan is reported to have said: "Of course Dad was for legalization. He wasn't crazy, He didn't want his kids in jail!" [1]
- They tell us we must learn to live with less, and teach our children that their lives will be less full and prosperous than ours have been; that the America of the coming years will be a place where— because of our past excesses— it will be impossible to dream and make those dreams come true.
I don't believe that. And, I don't believe you do either. That is why I am seeking the presidency. I cannot and will not stand by and see this great country destroy itself. Our leaders attempt to blame their failures on circumstances beyond their control, on false estimates by unknown, unidentifiable experts who rewrite modern history in an attempt to convince us our high standard of living, the result of thrift and hard work, is somehow selfish extravagance which we must renounce as we join in sharing scarcity. I don't agree that our nation must resign itself to inevitable decline, yielding it proud position to other hands. I am totally unwilling to see this country fail in its obligation to itself and to the other free peoples of the world.
- A troubled and afflicted mankind looks to us, pleading for us to keep our rendezvous with destiny; that we will uphold the principles of self-reliance, self-discipline, morality, and, above all, responsible liberty for every individual that we will become that shining city on a hill.
- Official Announcement of being a candidate for U.S. President (November 13, 1979)
- A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his.
- Campaign stop while running for president (1980)
First Inaugural Address (January 20, 1981)
- To a few of us here today this is a solemn and most momentous occasion, and yet in the history of our nation it is a commonplace occurrence. The orderly transfer of authority as called for in the Constitution routinely takes place, as it has for almost two centuries, and few of us stop to think how unique we really are. In the eyes of many in the world, this every-four-year ceremony we accept as normal is nothing less than a miracle.
- If we look to the answer as to why for so many years we achieved so much, prospered as no other people on earth, it was because here in this land we unleashed the energy and individual genius of man to a greater extent than has ever been done before. Freedom and the dignity of the individual have been more available and assured here than in any other place on earth. The price for this freedom at times has been high, but we have never been unwilling to pay the price.
- 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.
- 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. It is a weapon that we as Americans do have. Let that be understood by those who practice terrorism and prey upon their neighbors.
- Well I hope you're all Republicans.
- Speaking to surgeons as he entered the operating room following a 1981 assassination attempt (March 30,1981)
- This is not the time for political fun and games. This is the time for a new beginning. I ask you now to put aside any feelings of frustration or helplessness about our political institutions and join me in this dramatic but responsible plan to reduce the enormous burden of Federal taxation on you and your family.
- Address to the Nation (July 27, 1981)
- Every country and every people has a stake in the Afghan resistance, for the freedom fighters of Afghanistan are defending principles of independence and freedom that form the basis of global security and stability.
- Referring to groups who were resisting Soviet rule of Afghanistan with U.S. support, which included the Taleban , the mujahideen , and Osama bin Laden , in Proclamation 4908 —( Afghanistan Day, March 10, 1982) [2]
- Abraham Lincoln freed the black man. In many ways, Dr. King freed the white man. How did he accomplish this tremendous feat? Where others— white and black— preached hatred, he taught the principles of love and nonviolence. We can be so thankful that Dr. King raised his mighty eloquence for love and hope rather than for hostility and bitterness. He took the tension he found in our nation, a tension of injustice, and channeled it for the good of America and all her people.
- Address on the anniversary of the birth of Martin Luther King (January 15, 1983)
- The only way there could be war is if they start it; we're not going to start a war.
- Declaring what he would tell Yuri Andropov , head of the Soviet Union, were he in the room; in an interview for People magazine (December 6, 1983; Transcript released on December 19, 1983)
- I have talked here, and then I wrote people, because some theologians quite some time ago were telling me, calling attention to the fact that theologians have been studying the ancient prophecies— What would portend the coming of Armageddon?— and have said that never, in the time between the prophecies up until now has there ever been a time in which so many of the prophecies are coming together. There have been times in the past when people thought the end of the world was coming, and so forth, but never anything like this.
- In the same interview for People magazine (December 6, 1983)
- "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."
- Reacting to international criticism of the US invasion of Grenada , 1983, quoted in Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II by William Blum, (Common Courage Press, 2003) ISBN 1567512526 [3]
- History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.
- Address to the nation from the White House (January 16, 1984)
- My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.
- During a microphone check, unaware that he was being broadcast. (August 11, 1984)
- Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
- Remarks to the White House Conference on Small Business (August 15, 1986)
- "We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we may always be free."
- "Too much SALT is bad for your health."
- Remark on leaving the third round of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks , 1986
- "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 ."
- Speech at the Brandenburg Gate, 1987
- A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.
- 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.
- Remarks in Arlington, Virginia (September 25, 1987)
- 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.
- Moscow State University (May 31, 1988)
- Thomas Jefferson once said, “We should never judge a president by his age, only by his works.” And ever since he told me that I stopped worrying.
Farewell Address (January 11, 1989)
- 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.
- The lesson of all this was, of course, that because we're a great nation, our challenges seem complex. It will always be this way. But as long as we remember our first principles and believe in ourselves, the future will always be ours. And something else we learned: Once you begin a great movement, there's no telling where it will end. We meant to change a nation, and instead, we changed a world.
- "We the people" tell the government what to do, it doesn't tell us. "We the people" are the driver, the government is the car. And we decide where it should go, and by what route, and how fast. Almost all the world's constitutions are documents in which governments tell the people what their privileges are. Our Constitution is a document in which "We the people" tell the government what it is allowed to do. "We the people" are free.
- 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.
- We've done our part. And as I walk off into the city streets, a final word to the men and women of the Reagan revolution, the men and women across America who for eight years did the work that brought America back. My friends: We did it. We weren't just marking time. We made a difference. We made the city stronger. We made the city freer, and we left her in good hands. All in all, not bad, not bad at all.
And so, good-bye, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.
- Information is the oxygen of the modern age. It seeps through the walls topped by barbed wire, it wafts across the electrified borders. ... The Goliath of totalitarianism will be brought down by the David of the microchip.
- Whatever else history may say about me when I’m gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears; to your confidence rather than your doubts. My dream is that you will travel the road ahead with liberty’s lamp guiding your steps and opportunity’s arm steadying your way.
- Republican National Convention (1992)
- 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.
- Republican National Convention (February 3, 1994)
- In closing, let me thank you, the American people, for giving me the great honor of allowing me to serve as your president. When the Lord calls me home, whenever that day may be, I will leave with the greatest love for this country of ours and eternal optimism for its future. I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life. I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead.
- Letter to the American people, announcing his Alzheimer's diagnosis (1994)
1992 Republican National Convention
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!
(concerning Bill Clinton)
Attributed
- "Hard work never killed anyone, but why take a chance?"
- "He (John F. Kennedy) leaves little doubt that his idea of the "challenging new world" is one in which the Federal Government will grow bigger and do more and of course spend more.... Under the tousled boyish haircut it is still old Karl Marx." (1960)
- "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."
- "Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other."
- "I favor the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and it must be enforced at gunpoint if necessary."
- "I'm not smart enough to lie."
- "It isn't that Liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so much that isn't so."
- "Trees cause more pollution than automobiles do." (1981)
- "The entire income tax system was created by Karl Marx."
- "...in our obsession with antagonisms of the moment, we often forget how much unites all the members of humanity. Perhaps we need some outside, universal threat to make us recognize this common bond. I occasionally think, how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world."
- "Liberals fought poverty and poverty won."
- "Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican." ("the 11th Commandment")
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