Skip links

Inspirational Quotations

by RightAttitudes.com

Inspirational Quotes by Ronald Reagan (American Head of State)

Inspirational Quotations by Ronald Reagan (American Head of State)

Ronald Wilson Reagan (1911–2004) was an American Republican-party political leader who served as the 40th U.S. president 1981–89. He was a B-grade Hollywood actor and a union leader before entering politics.

Born in Tampico, Illinois, Reagan studied economics and became a radio announcer and sportscaster. He acted in over fifty mostly-unremarkable movies such as King’s Row (1941) and The Voice of the Turtle (1948.)

Reagan began his political career as a Democrat but later came to hate high taxes, big government, and communism. After two terms as governor of California, Reagan failed to gain the Republican party’s nomination in the 1968 and 1976 presidential elections. He was successful in 1980; he defeated Jimmy Carter and became, at the age of 61, then the oldest-ever president.

A conservative Republican, Reagan’s administration significantly increased defense spending, slashed taxes and social services funds but oversaw a significant rise in the national budget deficit.

Reagan held several summit meetings with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that brought about the nuclear forces non-proliferation treaty in 1987. Reagan left office in 1989, still massively popular with the American population.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Ronald Reagan

We have so many people who can’t see a fat man standing beside a thin one without coming to the conclusion that the fat man got that way by taking advantage of the thin one!
—Ronald Reagan
Topics: Justice

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

Let us ask ourselves; “What kind of people do we think we are?”
—Ronald Reagan

Freedom is the right to question and change the established way of doing things.
—Ronald Reagan

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.
—Ronald Reagan

In my eighty years, I prefer to call that the forty-first anniversary of my thirty ninth birthday, I’ve seen what men can do for each other and do to each other, I’ve seen war and peace, feast and famine, depression and prosperity, sickness and health. I’ve seen the depth of suffering and the peaks of triumph and I know in my heart that man is good, that what is right will always eventually triumph and that there is purpose and worth to each and every life.
—Ronald Reagan
Topics: Humanity

A leader, once convinced that a particular course of action is the right one, must be undaunted when the going gets tough.
—Ronald Reagan
Topics: Endurance, Perseverance, Determination

Peace is not absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means.
—Ronald Reagan

So in your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals, I urge you to beware the temptation of pride—the temptation blithely to declare yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong, good and evil.
—Ronald Reagan
Topics: War

Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged.
—Ronald Reagan
Topics: Freedom

The future doesn’t belong to the fainthearted, it belongs to the brave.
—Ronald Reagan

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.
—Ronald Reagan
Topics: Government

While I take inspiration from the past, like most Americans, I live for the future.
—Ronald Reagan
Topics: Americans, Past, The Past, Inspiration

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 is worth dying for, when did this begin..? …Should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots of Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard ’round the world?
—Ronald Reagan
Topics: Revolution

Poverty is a career for lot’s of well paid people
—Ronald Reagan
Topics: Poverty

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.
—Ronald Reagan

As government expands, liberty contracts
—Ronald Reagan
Topics: Government, One liners

I would have voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964
—Ronald Reagan

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.
—Ronald Reagan
Topics: Politics, Politicians

Since I came to the White House, I got two hearing aids, a colon operation, skin cancer, a prostate operation, and I was shot. The damn thing is I’ve never felt better in my life.
—Ronald Reagan
Topics: Cancer

We might come closer to balancing the Budget if all of us lived closer to the Commandments and the Golden Rule.
—Ronald Reagan
Topics: Economy, Economics

Let us not forget who we are. Drug abuse is a repudiation of everything America is.
—Ronald Reagan
Topics: Drugs

Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.
—Ronald Reagan
Topics: Government, Appetite, Babies, Responsibility

You can tell a lot about a fellow’s character by his way of eating jelly beans.
—Ronald Reagan
Topics: Character

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.
—Ronald Reagan
Topics: Security

True, lasting peace cannot be secured through
the strength of arms alone. Among free peoples,
the open exchange of ideas ultimately is our greatest security.
—Ronald Reagan

Someplace along the line the audience discovered you. In my case it was playing the Gipper.
—Ronald Reagan
Topics: Actors, Acting

I’m not smart enough to lie.
—Ronald Reagan
Topics: Lies

It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.
—Ronald Reagan
Topics: Politics, Politicians

Status quo, you know, that is Latin for the mess we’re in.
—Ronald Reagan
Topics: Change

This is not a jungle war, but a struggle for freedom on every front of human activity.
—Ronald Reagan

Abortion is advocated only by persons who have themselves been born.
—Ronald Reagan
Topics: Morality, Morals

Government does not tax to get the money it needs; government always finds a need for the money it gets
—Ronald Reagan
Topics: Welfare, Government

Recession is when a neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours.
—Ronald Reagan
Topics: Economics, Jobs

If you’ve seen one redwood, you’ve seen them all.
—Ronald Reagan
Topics: Experience

Inflation is as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber and as deadly as a hit man.
—Ronald Reagan

Some of the critics viewed Vietnam as a morality play in which the wicked must be punished before the final curtain and where any attempt to salvage self-respect from the outcome compounded the wrong. I viewed it as a genuine tragedy. No one had a monopoly on anguish.
—Ronald Reagan

Unemployment insurance is a pre-paid vacation for freeloaders.
—Ronald Reagan
Topics: Work, Unemployment

Entrepreneurs are the forgotten heroes of America.
—Ronald Reagan
Topics: Leadership

Millions of individuals making their own decisions
in the marketplace will always allocate resources
better than any centralized government planning process.
—Ronald Reagan
Topics: Self-Knowledge, Government

Wondering Whom to Read Next?