Ronald Reagan

We fought a war on poverty, and poverty won

America is, and always will be, a shining city on a hill.

Our government needs the church, because only those humble enough to admit they're sinners can bring democracy the tolerance it requires to survive

Here's my strategy on the Cold War: we win, they lose.

People don't start wars, governments do.

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.

Here you discover that so long as books are kept open, then minds can never be closed.

I do not want to go back to the past; I want to go back to the past way of facing the future.

The federal government did not create the states; the states created the federal government.

I've always believed that a lot of the trouble in the world would disappear if we were talking to each other instead of about each other.

In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem, government IS the problem. It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant, it's just that they know so much that isn't so.

Someday, the realm of liberty and justice will encompass the planet. Freedom is not just the birthright of the few, it is the God-given right of all His children, in every country. It won't come by conquest. It will come, because freedom is right and freedom works. It will come, because cooperation and good will among free people will carry the day.

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.

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 that's 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.

Sometimes when I'm faced with an atheist, I am tempted to invite him to the greatest gourmet dinner that one could ever serve, and when we have finished eating that magnificent dinner, to ask him if he believes there's a cook.

A nation that cannot control its borders is not a nation.

A troubled and afflicted mankind looks to us, pleading for us to keep our rendezvous with destiny; that we will uphold the principles of self-reliance, self-discipline, morality, and - above all - responsible liberty for every individual that we will become that shining city on a hill.

I hope we once again have reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts.

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