Ronald Reagan (1911-2004)

Quotes

• It is the march of freedom and democracy which will leave Marxism- Leninism on the ash heap of history as it has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people.

• You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream -- the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order -- or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism.

• 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 us to recognize shortcomings and seek solutions.

• There are some who've forgotten why we have a military. It's not to promote war; it's to be prepared for peace.

• Welfare's purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence.

• One definition of an economist is somebody who sees something happen in practice and wonders if it will work in theory.

• Nations crumble from within when the citizenry asks of government those things which the citizenry might better provide for itself.

• I think the best possible social program is a job.

• The federal government has taken too much tax money from the people, too much authority from the states, and too much liberty with the Constitution.

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

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

• Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

• We who live in free market societies believe that growth, prosperity and ultimately human fulfillment, are created from the bottom up, not the government down. Only when the human spirit is allowed to invent and create, only when individuals are given a personal stake in deciding economic policies and benefitting from their success -- only then can societies remain economically alive, dynamic, progressive, and free.

• Trust the people. This is the one irrefutable lesson of the entire postwar period contradicting the notion that rigid government controls are essential to economic development.

• Outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector.

• Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem.

• We've been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of government himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else?

• In an atmosphere of liberty, artists and patrons are free to think the unthinkable and create the audacious; they are free to make both horrendous mistakes and glorious celebrations.

• America is no stronger than its people - and that means you and me. Well, I believe in you, and I believe that if we work together then one day we will say, ``We fought the good fight. We finished the race We kept the faith.'' And to our children and our children's children we can say, ``We did all that could be done in the brief time that was given to us here on earth.

• I hope that when you are my age, you will be able to say as I have been able to say: We lived in freedom. We lived lives that were a statement, not an apology.