"Government does not solve problems, it subsidizes them."

"The problem is not that people are taxed too little, the problem is that government spends too much."

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

"Government is not the solution to the problem. Government is the problem"

"A Republican thinks every day is July 4th. A Democrat thinks every day is April 15th."

"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."

"We are faced with the most evil enemy [the Soviet Union] mankind has known in his long climb from the swamp to the stars." (speech at the Republican National Convention, October 27, 1964)

"Governments don't control things.  A government can't control the economy without controlling people." (October 27, 1964)

"Yet any time you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we're denounced as being opposed to their humanitarian goals.  It seems impossible to legitimately debate their solutions with the assumption that all of us share the desire to help the less fortunate.  They tell us we're always 'against,' never 'for' anything." (October 27, 1964)

"Those who would trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state have told us that they have a utopian solution of peace without victory.  They call their policy 'accommodation.'  And they say if we only avoid any direct confrontation with the enemy, he will forget his evil ways and learn to love us.  . . .  We cannot buy our security, our freedom from the threat of the bomb by committing an immorality so great as saying to a billion human beings now in slavery behind the Iron Curtain, 'Give up your dreams of freedom because to save our own skin, we are willing to make a deal with your slave-masters.'" (October 27, 1964)

"Admittedly, there is a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson in history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face." (October 27, 1964)

"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 moments here.  We did all that could be done." (October 27, 1964)

"Welfare's purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence."  (column in The Los Angeles Times, January 7, 1970)

"Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession.  I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first." (March 2, 1977)

"Are you better off than you were four years ago?  Is it easier for you to go and buy things in the stores ... Is there more or less unemployment?" (October 28, 1980)

"Ending inflation means freeing all Americans from the terror of runaway living costs.  ...  We have every right to dream heroic dreams.  Those who say that we are in a time when there are no heroes just don't know where to look. ...  Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women." (January 20, 1981)

"It is not my intention to do away with government.  It is rather to make it work -- work for us, not over us; stand by our side, not ride our back.  Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity, not stifle it." (January 20, 1981)

The Soviet leaders "reserve unto themselves the right to commit any crime, to lie, to cheat" and that "the only morality they recognize is what will further their cause."  (January 27, 1981)

"The West will not contain communism, it will transcend communism.  We will not bother to denounce it, we'll dismiss it as a sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages are even now being written." (May 1981)

"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." (speech to the National Association of Realtors, March 28, 1982)

"It is the Soviet Union that runs against the tide of human history by denying human freedom and human dignity to its citizens." (1982)

"The march of freedom and democracy  . . .  will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of history as it has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people." (1982)

"The Soviet Union is the focus of evil in the modern world." (March 8, 1983)

"The glory of this land has been its capacity for transcending the moral evils of our past.  For example, the long struggle of minority citizens for equal rights, once a source of disunity and civil war, is now a point of pride for all Americans.  We must never go back.  There is no room for racism, anti-Semitism, or other forms of ethnic and racial hatred in this country." (March 8, 1983)

"I believe that communism is another sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages even now are being written.  I believe this because the source of our strength in the quest for human freedom is not material, but spiritual.  And because it knows no limitation, it must terrify and ultimately triumph over those who would enslave their fellow men." (March 8, 1983)

"Trust the people --- that is the crucial lesson of history." (September 27, 1983)

"Millions of individuals making their own decisions in the marketplace will always allocate resources better than any centralized government planning process." (September 27, 1983)

"America is too great for small dreams." (January 1, 1984)

"Democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man." (June 6, 1984)

"We're here to mark that day in history [the 40th anniversary of D-Day] when the Allied armies joined in battle to reclaim this continent to liberty.  For four long years, much of Europe had been under a terrible shadow.  Free nations had fallen, Jews cried out in the camps, millions cried out for liberation.  Europe was enslaved, and the world prayed for its rescue.  Here in Normandy the rescue began.  Here the Allies stood and fought against tyranny in a giant undertaking unparalleled in human history.  . . .  At dawn, on the morning of the 6th of June, 1944, 225 Rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs.  Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion: to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns.  . . .  Behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that were thrust into the top of these cliffs.  And before me are the men who put them there.  These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc.  These are the men who took the cliffs.  These are the champions who helped free a continent.  These are the heroes who helped end a war." (June 6, 1984)

"History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap." (June 6, 1984)

"We in America have learned bitter lessons from two world wars:  It is better to be here [in Europe] ready to protect the peace, than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost.  We've learned that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent." (June 6, 1984)

"My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you that I have just signed legislation to outlaw Russia forever.  We begin bombing in five minutes."  (August 11, 1984, in a jest while testing the microphone for his weekly radio address)

"Every dollar the Federal Government does not take from us, every decision it does not make for us, will make our economy stronger, our lives more abundant, our future more free." (1985 State of the Union Address)

"Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it." (remarks to the White House Council on Business, August 15, 1986)

"Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don't interfere." (September 15, 1986, as quoted in Fortune)

"Nations do not mistrust each other because they are armed, they are armed because they mistrust each other." (September 22, 1986)

"Peace is more than just the absence of war.  True peace is justice, true peace is freedom.  And true peace dictates the recognition of human rights." (September 22, 1986)

"General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization:  Come here to this gate!  Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate!  Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." (June 12, 1987)