Reagan Quotes

Thanks to Dan Souza http://www.dansouza.org/Articles/Reagan/Early%20Life/early_life_of_ronald_reagan.htm for these quotes from Ronald Reagan.

We could sure use Mr. Reagan right about now.

To sit back hoping that some day, 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.

Welfare's purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence. (Jan. 7, 1970)

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 benefiting 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. (Sept. 29, 1981)

How do you tell a Communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell and anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin. (Sept. 25, 1987)

Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, "What greater service we could render if we only had a little more money and a little more power." But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector. (Oct. 27, 1964)

The Founding Fathers knew a government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing. (Oct. 27, 1964)

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. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, "The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits." (Oct. 27, 1964)