Quotes by Ronald Reagan

If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth.

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 first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.

The miracle of life is given by One greater than ourselves, but once given, each life is ours to nurture and preserve, to foster, not only for todays world but for a better one to come. There is no purpose more noble than for us to sustain and celebrate life in a turbulent world, and that is what we must do now. We have no higher duty, no greater cause as humans. Life and the preservation of freedom to live it in dignity is what we are on this Earth to do. Everything we work to achieve must seek that end so that some day our prime ministers, our premiers, our presidents, and our general secretaries will talk not of war and peace, but only of peace.

We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace.

If freedom, democracy, and the rights of man are to be preserved through the ages, free men and women must accept the responsibilities that go with their freedoms.

...Now lets set the record straight. Theres no argument over the choice between peace and war, but theres only one guaranteed way you can have peace—and you can have it in the next second—surrender. Admittedly, theres a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson of history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face—that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight or surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand—the ultimatum. And what then—when Nikita Khrushchev has told his people he knows what our answer will be? He has told them that were retreating under the pressure of the Cold War, and someday when the time comes to deliver the final ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary, because by that time we will have been weakened from within spiritually, morally, and economically. He believes this because from our side hes heard voices pleading for peace at any price or better Red than dead, or as one commentator put it, hed rather live on his knees than die on his feet. And therein lies the road to war, because those voices dont speak for the rest of us. You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin—just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didnt die in vain. Where, then, is the road to peace? Well its 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. And this—this is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwaters peace through strength. Winston Churchill said, The destiny of man is not measured by material computations. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn were spirits—not animals. And he said, Theres 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. Well preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or well sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness...

If politics were a musical, it would be Promises, Promises.

As government expands, liberty contracts.

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.

Ive 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.

Within the covers of the Bible are the answers for all the problems men face.

The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things.

Regimes planted by bayonets do not take root... Our military strength is a prerequisite to peace, but let it be clear we maintain this strength in the hope it will never be used, for the ultimate determinant in the struggle thats now going on in the world will not be bombs and rockets but a test of wills and ideas, a trial of spiritual resolve, the values we hold, the beliefs we cherish, the ideals to which we are dedicated.

Life is one grand sweet song so start the music

It seems to me that America is constantly reinventing what America means.

Recession is when your neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his.

The key for any speaker is to establish his own point of view for the audience, so they can see the game through his eyes.

Radio was theater of the mind.

You can’t tax business. Business doesn’t pay taxes. It collects taxes.

We fought a war on poverty, and poverty won