To sit back hoping that someday, 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.

The trouble with our Liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so.

No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!

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.

Democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man.

Status quo, you know, is Latin for 'the mess we're in'.

If the Soviet Union let another political party come into existence, they would still be a one-party state, because everybody would join the other party.

Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty.

I don't want to do a TV series. It's no fun working from dawn to sunset every day. An occasional movie would be fine, and then I'll see what might develop on the political front.

The United Sates has much to offer the third world war.

To say Congress is spending like drunken sailors is an insult to drunken sailors.

We need more Democrats in the Senate -Like Custer needed more arrows.

There are simple answers to the nation's problems, but not easy ones.

For too long, too many people dependent on Social Security have been cruelly frightened by individuals seeking political gain through demagoguery and outright falsehood, and this must stop.

I want to talk about political and economic fairy tales.

Professional politicians like to talk about the value of experience in government. Nuts! The only experience you gain in politics is how to be political.

If you're explaining, you're losing.

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.

In a world wracked by hatred, economic crisis, and political tension, America remains mankind's best hope.

I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience.

We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much.

Baseball is our national pastime, that is if you discount political campaigning.

The difference between them and us is that we want to check government spending and they want to spend government checks.

As government expands, liberty contracts.

Man is not free unless government is limited.

They have answered the stirrings of liberty with brute force, killings, mass arrests, and the setting up of concentration camps.

the Berlin Wall came down, the Evil Empire collapsed, and the cause of liberty prevailed in the world.

Where there's liberty, art succeeds.

My dream is that you will travel the road ahead with liberty's lamp guiding your steps and opportunity's arm steadying your way.

Our liberty springs from and depends upon an abiding faith in God.

A state is nothing more than a reflection of its citizens; the more decent the citizens, the more decent the state.

The torch of liberty is hot; warms those who hold it high; burns those who try to extinguish it.

We're told about a woman's right to control her own body. But doesn't the unborn child have a higher right, and that is to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?

Once people who have been deprived of basic freedom taste a little of it, they want all of it.

Freedom is indivisible - there is no "s" on the end of it. You can erode freedom, diminish it, but you cannot divide it and choose to keep "some freedoms" while giving up others.

I don't have to tell you how fragile this precious gift of freedom is. Every time we hear, watch, or read the news, we are reminded that liberty is a rare commodity in this world.

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.

Our natural, inalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation from government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment.

But in the West today, we see a free world that has achieved a level of prosperity and well-being unprecedented in all human history. In the Communist world, we see failure, technological backwardness, declining standards of health, even want of the most basic kind - too little food. Even today, the Soviet Union still cannot feed itself. After these four decades, then, there stands before the entire world one great and inescapable conclusion: Freedom leads to prosperity. Freedom replaces the ancient hatreds among the nations with comity and peace. Freedom is the victor.

We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much.

I have seen the rise of fascism and communism. Both philosophies glorify the arbitrary power of the state... But both theories fail. Both deny those God-given liberties that are the inalienable right of each person on this planet, indeed, they deny the existence of God.

As government expands, liberty contracts.

History comes and history goes, but principles endure, and ensure future generations will defend liberty not as a gift from government but as a blessing from our Creator.

Government is not the solution, but rather the cause of our problems.

Individual liberty depends upon keeping government under control.

I believe that the most essential element of our defense of freedom is our insistence on speaking out for the cause of religious liberty.

There are no limits to growth and human progress when men and women are free to follow their dreams.

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. (January 20, 1981)

Putting people first has always been America's secret weapon. It's the way we've kept the spirit of our revolutions alive -- a spirit that drives us to dream and dare, and take great risks for a greater good.

I have seen the rise and fall of Nazi tyranny, the subsequent cold war and the nuclear nightmare that for fifty years haunted the dreams of children everywhere. During that time my generation defeated totalitarianism. As a result, your world is poised for better tomorrows. What will you do on your journey?