Top 500 Ronald Reagan Quotes (2025 Update)
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451. “The other day, someone told me the difference between a democracy and a people’s democracy. It’s the same difference between a jacket and a straitjacket.”

— Ronald Reagan

452. “One of the worst mistakes anybody can make is to bet against Americans.”

— Ronald Reagan

453. “Through you, we feel as giants, once again.”

— Ronald Reagan

454. “I believe with all my heart that standing up for America means standing up for the God who has so blessed our land. We need God’s help to guide our nation through stormy seas. But we can’t expect Him to protect America in a crisis if we just leave Him over on the shelf in our day-to-day living. Speech, New Orleans, November 16, 1982.”

— Ronald Reagan

455. “A university is a place where ancient tradition thrives alongside the most revolutionary ideas. Perhaps as no other institution, a university is simultaneously committed to the day before yesterday and the day after tomorrow.”

— Ronald Reagan

456. “I believe now, as I alway have, that America’s strength is in ‘We the People.’”

— Ronald Reagan

457. “The Federal Reserve is answerable to no one.”

— Ronald Reagan

458. “America stands unique in the world: the only country not founded on race but on a way, an ideal. Not in spite of but because of our polyglot background, we have had all the strength in the world. That is the American way.”

— Ronald Reagan

459. “As a nation, we must choose between the sanctity of life ethic and the quality of life ethic. I have no trouble identifying the answer our nation has always given to this basic question, and the answer that I hope and pray it will give in the future.”

— Ronald Reagan

460. “The person who pays an ounce of principle for a pound of popularity gets badly cheated.”

— Ronald Reagan

461. “My golf-loving friend Bob Hope asked me what my handicap was, so I told him – the Congress.”

— Ronald Reagan

462. “I am not worried about the deficit. It is big enough to take care of itself.”

— Ronald Reagan

463. “I favor the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and it must be enforced at gunpoint if necessary.”

— Ronald Reagan

464. “Elvis epitomised America, and for that we shall be eternally grateful. There will never be anyone else like him. Let’s all rejoice in his music.”

— Ronald Reagan

465. “Well I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again ? America’s best days are yet to come. Our proudest moments are yet to be. Our most glorious achievements are just ahead.”

— Ronald Reagan

466. “We were poor when I was young but the difference was that the government didn’t come around telling you you were poor.”

— Ronald Reagan

467. “Facts are stupid things ? stubborn things, I should say.”

— Ronald Reagan

468. “California produces 40% of America’s fresh fruits, vegetables and nuts – the kind you eat. We have had a bumper crop of the other variety, too.”

— Ronald Reagan

469. “If a tax hike makes it to my desk, I’ll veto it in less time than it takes Vanna White to turn the letters V-E-T-O!”

— Ronald Reagan

470. “He struck a mighty blow for equality, freedom and the American way of life. Jackie Robinson was a good citizen, a great man, and a true American champion.”

— Ronald Reagan

471. “I once played a sheriff who thought he could do the job without a gun. I was dead in twenty-seven minutes of a thirty minute show.”

— Ronald Reagan

472. “Someone told me it was a round thing that gobbles up money. I thought that was Tip O’Neill.”

— Ronald Reagan

473. “For three decades, we have sought to solve the problems of unemployment through government planning, and the more the plans fail, the more the planners plan.”

— Ronald Reagan

474. “Liberals are people who think that being tough on crime means longer suspended sentences.”

— Ronald Reagan

475. “When cruelty is inflicted on innocent people, it discredits whatever cause.”

— Ronald Reagan

476. “Are you willing to spend time studying the issues, making yourself aware, and then conveying that information to family and friends? Will you resist the temptation to get a government handout for your community?”

— Ronald Reagan

477. “I supported this bill. I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and who have lived here even though sometime back they may have entered illegally.”

— Ronald Reagan

478. “The Federalist Society is changing the culture of our nation’s law schools. You are returning the values and concepts of law as our founders understood them to scholarly dialogue, and through that dialogue, to our legal institutions.”

— Ronald Reagan

479. “I hope Americans will read and study the Bible in the coming year. It’s my firm belief that the enduring values, as I say, presented in its pages have a great meaning for each of us and for our nation.”

— Ronald Reagan

480. “I believe that George Washington knew the City of Man cannot survive without the City of God; that the Visible City will perish without the Invisible City.”

— Ronald Reagan

481. “No nation in history has ever survived a tax burden that reached a third of its national income.”

— Ronald Reagan

482. “My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you I just signed legislation which outlaws Russia forever. The bombing begins in five minutes.”

— Ronald Reagan

483. “The future belongs to the free.”

— Ronald Reagan

484. “Our government needs the church, because only those humble enough to admit they’re sinners can bring democracy the tolerance it requires to survive.”

— Ronald Reagan

485. “I’d like to harness their youthful energy with a strap.”

— Ronald Reagan

486. “America has not been a story or a byword. That small community of Pilgrims prospered and, driven by the dreams and, yes, by the ideas of the Founding Fathers, went on to become a beacon to all the oppressed and poor of the world.”

— Ronald Reagan

487. “Are you entitled to the fruits of your own labor or does government have some presumptive right to spend and spend and spend?”

— Ronald Reagan

488. “I have decided that whatever time I may have left is left for Him.”

— Ronald Reagan

489. “Honey, I forgot to duck.”

— Ronald Reagan

490. “When we speak of peace, we should not mean just the absence of war. True peace rests on the pillars of individual freedom, human rights, national self-determination, and respect for the rule of law.”

— Ronald Reagan

491. “Young Americans must never again be sent to fight and die unless we are prepared to let them win.”

— Ronald Reagan

492. “Wouldn’t it be better for the human spirit and for the soul of this nation to encourage people to accept more responsibility to care for each other rather than leaving those tasks to paid bureaucrats.”

— Ronald Reagan

493. “I deplore the tendency, in some institutions, to go directly toward training for a trade or profession or something and ignoring the liberal arts. It is the foundation of education.”

— Ronald Reagan

494. “I know that some believe that voluntary prayer in schools should be restricted to a moment of silence. We already have the right to remain silent – we can take our Fifth Amendment.”

— Ronald Reagan

495. “Blondes have the hottest kisses. Red-heads are fair-to-middling torrid, and brunettes are the frigidest of all. It’s something to do with hormones, no doubt.”

— Ronald Reagan

496. “It is no coincidence that when the thugs tried to wrest control over Grenada, there were 30 Soviet advisors and hundreds of Cuban military and paramilitary forces on the island.”

— Ronald Reagan

497. “A friend of mine was asked to a costume ball a short time ago. He slapped some egg on his face and went as a liberal economist.”

— Ronald Reagan

498. “Republicans believe the best way to assure prosperity is to generate more jobs. The Democrats believe in more welfare.”

— Ronald Reagan

499. “Shouldn’t someone tag Mr. Kennedy’s bold new imaginative program with its proper age? Under the tousled boyish haircut is still old Karl Marx-first launched a century ago. There is nothing new in the idea of a government being Big Brother.”

— Ronald Reagan

500. “I think growing up in a small town is a good foundation for anyone who decides to enter politics. You get to know people as individuals, not as blocs or members of special interest groups.”

— Ronald Reagan