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History Shows That When The Taxes Of A Nation Approach About 20 Percent Of The People's Income, There Begins To Be A Lack Of Respect For Government.... When It Reaches 25 Percent, There Comes An Increase In Lawlessness.

-Ronald Reagan

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History Shows That When

Ronald Reagan

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History Shows That When The Taxes Of A Nation Approach About 20 Percent Of The People's Income, There Begins To Be A Lack Of Respect For Government.... When It Reaches 25 Percent, There Comes An Increase In Lawlessness.

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Within The Covers Of The Bible Are The Answers For All The Problems Men Face.

Please Tell Me You're Republicans.

It's All Part Of Taking A Chance And Expanding Man's Horizons. The Future Doesn't Belong To The Fainthearted; It Belongs To The Brave.

Once People Who Have Been Deprived Of Basic Freedom Taste A Little Of It, They Want All Of It.

The Bible Tells Us There Will Be A Time For Peace. But, So Far In This Century, Mankind Has Failed To Find It.

Thomas Jefferson Made A Comment About The Presidency And Age. He Said That One Should Not Worry About One's Exact Chronological Age In Reference To His Ability To Perform One's Task. And Ever Since He Told Me That, I Stopped Worrying.

I Believe The Highest Aspiration Of Man Should Be Individual Freedom And The Development Of The Individual.

The Years Ahead Will Be Great Ones For Our Country, For The Cause Of Freedom And The Spread Of Civilization. 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.

It Is The Soviet Union That Runs Against The Tide Of Human History By Denying Human Freedom And Human Dignity To Its Citizens.

My Dream Is That You Will Travel The Road Ahead With Liberty's Lamp Guiding Your Steps And Opportunity's Arm Steadying Your Way.

Small Business Is The Gateway To Opportunity For Those Who Want A Piece Of The American Dream... Well, Wouldn't It Be Nice To Hear A Little More About The Forgotten Heroes Of America - Those Who Create Most Of Our New Jobs, Like The Owners Of Stores Down The Street; The Faithfuls Who Support Our Churches, Synagogues, Schools, And Communities; The Brave Men And Women Everywhere Who Produce Our Goods, Feed A Hungry World, And Keep Our Families Warm While They Invest In The Future To Build A Better America? That's Where Miracles Are Made, Not In Washington, D.c.

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.

...i Believe That It Is Not Enough, As I Said, To Tinker At The Margins Of U.s. Immigration Law... The United States Must Institute Comprehensive Reforms That Conform To The Realities Of The Era In Which We Live.

Whether Meeting With Leaders And Parents Concerned About Drugs In Bonn, Lisbon, Or With The Holy Father At The Vatican, Or Doing A Pretty Fair Flamenco In Madrid, I Think Nancy's One Of The Best Ambassadors America's Ever Had.

Welfare's Purpose Should Be To Eliminate, As Far As Possible, The Need For Its Own Existence.

We're More Than Friends And Neighbors And Allies; We Are Kin, Who Together Have Built The Most Productive Relationship Between Any Two Countries In The World Today.

People Are Tired Of Wasteful Government Programs And Welfare Chiselers, And They Are Angry About The Constant Spiral Of Taxes And Government Regulations, Arrogant Bureaucrats, And Public Officials Who Think All Of Mankind's Problems Can Be Solved By Throwing The Taxpayers Dollars At Them.

I Will Stand On, And Continue To Use, The Figures I Have Used, Because I Believe They Are Correct. Now, I'm Not Going To Deny That You Don't Now And Then Slip Up On Something; No One Bats A Thousand.

Freedom-loving People Around The World Must Say . . . I Am A Refugee In A Crowded Boat Foundering Off The Coast Of Vietnam. I Am Laotian, A Cambodian, A Cuban, And A Miskito Indian In Nicaragua. I, Too, Am A Potential Victim Of Totalitarianism.

When I Took The Oath Of Office, I Pledged Loyalty To Only One Special Interest Group - ‘we The People’.

For Decades, We Have Piled Deficit Upon Deficit, Mortgaging Our Future And Our Children's Future For The Temporary Convenience Of The Present. To Continue This Long Trend Is To Guarantee Tremendous Social, Cultural, Political, And Economic Upheavals. You And I, As Individuals, Can, By Borrowing, Live Beyond Our Means, But For Only A Limited Period Of Time. Why, Then, Should We Think That Collectively, As A Nation, We Are Not Bound By That Same Limitation?

Greatest Gift Is Human Life And That We Have A Duty To Protect The Life Of An Unborn Child.

Freedom Is Never More Than One Generation Away From Extinction. We Didn't Pass It To Our Children In The Bloodstream. It Must Be Fought For, Protected, And Handed On For Them To Do The Same.

We Know That This Mad Dog Of The Middle East Has A Goal Of A World Revolution. (on Muammar Qaddafi Of Libya)

I Was Alarmed At My Doctor's Report: He Said I Was Sound As A Dollar.

The Wpa Was One Of The Most Productive Elements Of Fdr's Alphabet Soup Of Agencies Because It Put People To Work Building Roads, Bridges, And Other Projects... It Gave Men And Women A Chance To Make Some Money Along With The Satisfaction Of Knowing They Earned It.

Either You Will Control Your Government, Or Government Will Control You.

Self-defense Is Not Only Our Right; It Is Our Duty.

You Know, By The Time You Reach My Age, You've Made Plenty Of Mistakes If You've Lived Your Life Properly. So You Learn. You Put Things In Perspective. You Pull Your Energies Together. You Change. You Go Forward. My Fellow Americans, I Have A Great Deal That I Want To Accomplish With You And For You Over The Next Two Years. And, The Lord Willing, That's Exactly What I Intend To Do.

There Are No Degrees Of Honesty.

To Say Congress Is Spending Like Drunken Sailors Is An Insult To Drunken Sailors.

Our Government Needs The Church, Because Only Those Humble Enough To Admit They're Sinners Can Bring Democracy The Tolerance It Requires To Survive

I Warned That There Should Be No Place On Earth Where Terrorists Can Rest And Train And Practice Their Deadly Skills. I Meant It. I Said That We Would Act With Others, If Possible, And Alone If Necessary To Ensure That Terrorists Have No Sanctuary Anywhere. Tonight, We Have.

Someone Asked Me Whether I Was Aware Of All The People Out There Who Were Praying For The President. And I Had To Say, "yes, I Am. I've Felt It. I Believe In Intercessory Prayer." But I Couldn't Help But Say To That Questioner After He'd Asked The Question That - Or At Least Say To Them That If Sometimes When He Was Praying He Got A Busy Signal, It Was Just Me In There Ahead Of Him.

We Could Say The Government Spend Like Drunken Sailors, But That Would Be Unfair To Drunken Sailors, Because The Sailors Are Spending Their Own Money.

A Broader Reading Of History Shows That Appeasement, No Matter How It Is Labeled, Never Fulfills The Hopes Of The Appeasers.

A Nation Without Borders Is No Nation At All.

The Founding Fathers Believed That Faith In God Was The Key To Our Being A Good People And America's Becoming A Great Nation.

Only When The Human Spirit Is Allowed To Invent And Create, Only When Individuals Are Given A Personal Stake In Deciding Economic Policies And Benefiting From Their Success - Only Then Can Societies Remain Economically Alive, Dynamic, Prosperous, Progressive And Free.

Let Me Make Our Goal In This Program Very Clear: Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, And More Jobs. Our Policy Has Been And Will Continue To Be: What Is Good For The American Worker Is Good For America.

I Like Photographers-you Don't Ask Questions.

Our Principles Were Revolutionary. We Began As A Small, Weak Republic. But We Survived. Our Example Inspired Others, Imperfectly At Times, But It Inspired Them Nevertheless. This Constitutional Republic, Conceived In Liberty And Dedicated To The Proposition That All Men Are Created Equal, Prospered And Grew Strong. To This Day, America Is Still The Abiding Alternative To Tyranny. That Is Our Purpose In The World - Nothing More And Nothing Less.

I Know At Times We Feel That Perhaps In Our Prayers We Ask Too Much. Or Possibly We Feel Something Isn't Important Enough To Be Bothering God With It. Maybe We Should Let Him Decide These Things.

I Have Decided That Whatever Time I May Have Left Is Left For Him.

I Wasn't A Great Communicator, But I Communicated Great Things.

It's Not That Liberals Aren't Smart, It's Just That So Much Of What They Know Isn't So

'trust-me' Government Asks That We Concentrate Our Hopes And Dreams On One Man, That We Trust Him To Do What's Best For Us. My View Of Government Places Trust Not In One Person Or One Party, But In Those Values That Transcend Persons And Parties.

Our Policy Is Simple: We Are Not Going To Betray Our Friends, Reward The Enemies Of Freedom, Or Permit Fear And Retreat To Become American Policies — Especially In This Hemisphere. None Of The Four Wars In My Lifetime Came About Because We Were Too Strong.

What We Have Found In This Country, And Maybe We're More Aware Of It Now, Is One Problem That We've Had, Even In The Best Of Times, And That Is The People Who Are Sleeping On The Grates, The Homeless, You Might Say, By Choice.

It's Difficult To Believe That People Are Still Starving In This Country Because Food Isn't Available.

Everywhere We Go, Nancy Makes The World A Little Better.

When The Labor Department Is Forced To Relent And Let These Visitors Do This Work It Is Of Course All Legal. But It Makes One Wonder About The Illegal Alien Fuss. Are Great Numbers Of Our Unemployed Really Victims Of The Illegal Alien Invasion Or Are Those Illegal Tourists Actually Doing Work Our Own People Won't Do? One Thing Is Certain In This Hungry World; No Regulation Or Law Should Be Allowed If It Results In Crops Rotting In The Field For Lack Of Harvesters.

If We Miss This Chance To Make A Fresh Start, We May Look Back On This Moment From Some Later Vantage Point And Realize How Much That Failure Cost Us All.

Families Cannot Prosper And Keep America Strong If Government Becomes A Goliath That Preys Upon Their Wealth, Usurps Their Rights, And Crushes Their Spirit.

I Would Like To Dissolve The $10 Billion National Department Of Education Created By President Carter And Turn Schools Back To The Local School Districts, Where We Built The Greatest Public School System The World Has Ever Seen. I Think I Can Make A Case That The Decline In The Quality Of Public Education Began When Federal Aid Became Federal Interference.

I Can't Help But Believe That In The Future We Will See In The United States And Throughout The Western World An Increasing Trend Toward The Next Logical Step, Employee Ownership. It Is A Path That Befits A Free People.

By Working Together, Pooling Our Resources And Building On Our Strengths, We Can Accomplish Great Things.

Working Together

There Is No Foundation Like The Rock Of Honesty And Fairness, And When You Begin To Build Your Life On That Rock, With The Cement Of The Faith In God That You Have, Then You Have A Real Start.

I Don't Know What I Expected, But My First Morning In The Oval Office Had A Surprising Ring Of Familiarity To It. It Reminded Me A Lot Of My Job As Governor.

Double - No, Triple - Our Troubles And We'd Still Be Better Off Than Any Other People On Earth.

To Many Of Us Now, Computers, Silicon Chips, Data Processing, Cybernetics, And All The Other Innovations Of The Dawning High Technology Age Are As Mystifying As The Workings Of The Combustion Engine Must Have Been When That First Model T Rattled Down Main Street, U.s.a. But As Surely As America's Pioneer Spirit Made Us The Industrial Giant Of The 20th Century, The Same Pioneer Spirit Today Is Opening Up On Another Vast Front Of Opportunity, The Frontier Of High Technology.

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.

Let Us Ask Ourselves; "what Kind Of People Do We Think We Are?"

If No One Among Us Is Capable Of Governing Himself, Then Who Among Us Has The Capcity To Govern Someone Else.

Her Many Achievements Will Be Appreciated More As Time Goes On.

Bobby Kennedy Is So Concerned With Poverty Because He Didn't Have Any As A Kid.

A Truly Successful Army Is One That, Because Of Its Strength And Ability And Dedication, Will Not Be Called Upon To Fight, For No One Will Dare To Provoke It.

You Know, By The Time You Reach My Age, You've Made Plenty Of Mistakes If You've Lived Your Life Properly.

It Is My Fervent Goal And Hope... That We Will Someday No Longer Have To Rely On Nuclear Weapons To Deter Aggression And Assure World Peace. To That End The United States Is Now Engaged In A Serious And Sustained Effort To Negotiate Major Reductions In Levels Of Offensive Nuclear Weapons With The Ultimate Goal Of Eliminating These Weapons From The Face Of The Earth.

The Real Question Today Is Not When Human Life Begins, But, What Is The Value Of Human Life? The Abortionist Who Reassembles The Arms And Legs Of A Tiny Baby To Make Sure All Its Parts Have Been Torn From Its Mother's Body Can Hardly Doubt Whether It Is A Human Being. The Real Question For Him And For All Of Us Is Whether That Tiny Human Life Has A God-given Right To Be Protected By The Law - The Same Right We Have.

I Know That It Is Often Difficult To Stand Up For One's Beliefs When They Are Being Harshly Challenged. But As One Who Has Seen Many Challenges Over A Long Lifetime, I Can Assure You That Personal Faith And Conviction Are Strengthened, Not Weakened, In Adversity.

I Just Don't Think It's Good For Us To Be Run Out Of Town. (refusing To Cancel Secretary Of State Visit To Moscow)

The Bill's A Textbook Example Of Special Interest Pork Barrel Politics At Work, And I Have No Choice But To Veto It.

Are You Better Off Than You Were Four Years Ago? One Of My Favorite Quotes Is It Easier For You To Go And Buy Things In The Stores ... Is There More Or Less Unemployment?

Extreme Taxation, Excessive Controls, Oppressive Government Competition With Business, Frustrated Minorities And Forgotten Americans Are Not The Products Of Free Enterprise. They Are The Residue Of Centralized Bureaucracy, Of Government By A Self-anointed Elite.

If The Family Goes, So Goes Our Civilization.

We Are Forever Indebted To Those Who Have Given Their Lives That We Might Be Free.

You'd Be Surprised How Much Being A Good Actor Pays Off.

To Paraphrase Winston Churchill, I Did Not Take The Oath I Have Just Taken With The Intention Of Presiding Over The Dissolution Of The World's Strongest Economy.

We Must Reject The Idea That Every Time A Law's Broken, Society Is Guilty Rather Than The Lawbreaker. It Is Time To Restore The American Precept That Each Individual Is Accountable For His Actions.

In Closing, Let Me Thank You, The American People, For Giving Me The Great Honor Of Allowing Me To Serve As Your President. When The Lord Calls Me Home, Whenever That Day May Be, I Will Leave With The Greatest Love For This Country Of Ours And Eternal Optimism For Its Future. I Now Begin The Journey That Will Lead Me Into The Sunset Of My Life. I Know That For America There Will Always Be A Bright Dawn Ahead.

Our Country Is Great Because It Is Built On Principles Of Self-reliance, Opportunity, Innovation, And Compassion For Others.

We're Approaching The End Of A Bloody Century Plagued By A Terrible Political Invention, Totalitarianism. Optimism Comes Less Easily Today, Not Because Democracy Is Less Vigorous, But Because Democracy's Enemies Have Refined Their Instruments Of Repression.

We Must Always Meet Our Obligation To Those Who Fall Behind Without Our Assistance. But Let's Remember, Without A Race There Can Be No Champion, No Records Broken, No Excellence - In Education Or Any Other Walk Of Life.

A Moment I've Been Dreading. George Brought His Ne're-do-well Son Around This Morning And Asked Me To Find The Kid A Job. Not The Political One Who Lives In Florida. The One Who Hangs Around Here All The Time Looking Shiftless. This So-called Kid Is Already Almost 40 And Has Never Had A Real Job. Maybe I'll Call Kinsley Over At The New Republic And See If They'll Hire Him As A Contributing Editor Or Something. That Looks Like Easy Work.

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.

Our Nation Was Built And Civilized By Men And Women Who Used Guns In Self-defense And In Pursuit Of Peace. One Wonders Indeed, If The Rising Crime Rate, Isn't Due As Much As Anything To The Criminal's Instinctive Knowledge That The Average Victim No Longer Has Means Of Self-protection.

I'm Convinced, More Than Ever, That Man Finds Liberation Only When He Binds Himself To God And Commits Himself To His Fellow Man.

I Received A Letter Just Before I Left Office From A Man. I Don't Know Why He Chose To Write It, But I'm Glad He Did. He Wrote That You Can Go To Live In France, But You Can't Become A Frenchman. You Can Go To Live In Germany Or Italy, But You Can't Become A German, An Italian. He Went Through Turkey, Greece, Japan And Other Countries. But He Said Anyone, From Any Corner Of The World, Can Come To Live In The United States And Become An American.

I Have Come To The Conclusion That The 22nd Amendment [limiting The Presidency To Two Terms] Was A Mistake. Shouldn't The People Have The Right To Vote For Someone As Many Times As They Want To Vote For Him?

We Seek The Elimination One Day Of Nuclear Weapons From The Face Of The Earth.

I Do Not Believe In A Fate That Will Fall On Us No Matter What We Do. I Do Believe In A Fate That Will Fall On Us If We Do Nothing.

All Of Us Should Remember That The Federal Government Is Not Some Mysterious Institution Comprised Of Buildings, Files And Paper. The People Are The Government. What We Create We Ought To Be Able To Control.

The Basis Of Conservatism Is A Desire For Less Government Interference Or Less Centralized Authority Or More Individual Freedom...

Now, I Happen To Be An Optimist.

Violence Has Been Nicaragua's Most Important Export To The World.

It Has Been Said That Politics Is The Second Oldest Profession. I Have Learned That It Bears A Striking Resemblance To The First.

Why Should The Government Subsidize Intellectual Curiosity?

Abortion Is Advocated Only By Persons Who Have Themselves Been Born.

The Frustrating Thing Is That Those Who Are Attacking Religion Claim They Are Doing It In The Name Of Tolerance, Freedom And Openmindedness. Question: Isn't The Real Truth That They Are Intolerant Of Religion? They Refuse To Tolerate Its Importance In Our Lives.

I Know All The Bad Things That Happened In That War. I Was In Uniform Four Years Myself.

I'm Just A Citizen Temporarily In Public Service.

I've Said It Before And I'll Say It Again. The U.s. Geological Survey Has Told Me That The Proven Potential For Oil In Alaska Alone Is Greater Than The Proven Reserves In Saudi Arabia.

There Is Nothing Wrong With America That Americans Can't Fix.

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.

Like The Genocide Of The Armenians Before It, And The Genocide Of The Cambodians Which Followed It ... The Lessons Of The Holocaust Must Never Be Forgotten.

We Should Measure Welfare's Success By How Many People Leave Welfare, Not By How Many Are Added.

Government Welfare

Through The History Of Our Nation, Americans Have Always Extended Their Hands In Gestures Of Assistance.

I Sometimes Think If Someone Appealed The Ten Commandments To Some Of Our Courts, They Would Rule - 'thou Shalt Not, Unless You Feel Strongly To The Contrary'.

Anytime You And I Question The Schemes Of The Do-gooders, We're Denounced As Being Against Their Humanitarian Goals. They Say We're Always "against" Things-we're Never "for" Anything. Well, The Trouble With Our Liberal Friends Is Not That They're Ignorant; It's Just That They Know So Much That Isn't So.

I Knew Thomas Jefferson. He Was A Friend Of Mine. And Believe Me, You Are No Thomas Jefferson. (at 1992 Republican Party Convention, Referring To Bill Clinton)

We Can't Socialize The Doctors Without Socializing The Patients.

Isn't Our Choice Really Not One Of Left Or Right, But Of Up Or Down? Down Through The Welfare State To Statism, To More And More Government Largesse Accompanied Always By More Government Authority, Less Individual Liberty, And Ultimately, Totalitarianism, Always Advanced As For Our Own Good. The Alternative Is The Dream Conceived By Our Founding Fathers, Up To The Ultimate In Individual Freedom Consistent With An Orderly Society.

And Children, If Your Parents Haven't Been Teaching You What It Means To Be An American, Let 'em Know And Nail 'em On It. That Would Be A Very American Thing To Do.

We Are A Nation That Has A Government-not The Other Way Around. And That Makes Us Special Among The Nations Of The Earth.

Common Sense Told Us That To Preserve The Peace, We'd Have To Become Strong Again After Years Of Weakness And Confusion. So, We Rebuilt Our Defenses, And This New Year We Toasted The New Peacefulness Around The Globe. Not Only Have The Superpowers Actually Begun To Reduce Their Stockpiles Of Nuclear Weapons...but The Regional Conflicts That Rack The Globe Are Also Beginning To Cease.

Anyone Who Seeks Success Or Greatness Should First Forget About Both And Seek Only The Truth. The Rest Will Follow.

We Maintain The Peace Through Our Strength; Weakness Only Invites Aggression.

Peace Through Strength

By 1980, We Knew It Was Time To Renew Our Faith, To Strive With All Our Strength Toward The Ultimate In Individual Freedom Consistent With An Orderly Society. We Believed Then And Now There Are No Limits To Growth And Human Progress When Men And Women Are Free To Follow Their Dreams.

If History Teaches Us Anything, It Teaches That Simple-minded Appeasement Or Wishful Thinking About Our Adversaries Is Folly.

A Strong Nation Is One That Is Loved By Its People And, As Edmund Burke Put It, For A Country To Be Loved It Ought To Be Lovely.

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.

When You Start Talking About Government As 'we' Instead Of 'they,' You Have Been In Office Too Long.

Outside Of Its Legitimate Function, Government Does Nothing As Well Or Economically As The Private Sector.

I Hope You're All Republicans.

In Case Anybody Asks You About My Position On Capital Punishment, You Can Tell Them I Favor It; And If They Want To Know Why, You Can Tell Them This Story.

Abraham Lincoln Freed The Black Man. In Many Ways, Dr. King Freed The White Man. How Did He Accomplish This Tremendous Feat? Where Others - White And Black - Preached Hatred, He Taught The Principles Of Love And Nonviolence.

The Doctor Begins To Lose Freedoms; It's Like Telling A Lie, And One Leads To Another. First You Decide That The Doctor Can Have So Many Patients. They Are Equally Divided Among The Various Doctors By The Government. But Then The Doctors Aren't Equally Divided Geographically, So A Doctor Decides He Wants To Practice In One Town And The Government Has To Say To Him You Can't Live In That Town, They Already Have Enough Doctors. You Have To Go Someplace Else. And From Here It Is Only A Short Step To Dictating Where He Will Go.

Before I Refuse To Take Your Questions, I Have An Opening Statement.

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. It Is A Weapon Our Adversaries In Today's World Do Not Have.

Here's My Strategy On The Cold War: We Win, They Lose.

Today, If You Invent A Better Mousetrap, The Government Comes Along With A Better Mouse.

The Time Has Come To Turn To God And Reassert Our Trust In Him.

Spiritual Renewal

I Didn't Leave The Democratic Party; The Democratic Party Left Me.

There Are Only Two Things That The Liberals Don't Understand: The Things That Change And The Things That Don't.

What Has Happened To The Dreams Of The United Nations' Founders? What Has Happened To The Spirit Which Created The United Nations? The Answer Is Clear: Governments Got In The Way Of The Dreams Of The People.

Our Loyalty Lies With Little Taxpayers, Not Big Spenders. What Our Critics Really Believe Is That Those In Washington Know Better How To Spend Your Money Than You, The People, Do. But We're Not Going To Let Them Do It, Period.

An Old Russian Woman Goes Into Kremlin, Gets An Audience With Mikhail Gorbachev And Says, In America Anyone Can Go To The White House, Walk Up To Reagan's Desk And Say, 'i Don't Like The Way You Are Running The Country.' Gorbachev Replied, You Can Do The Same Thing In The Soviet Union. You Can Go Into The Kremlin, Walk Up To My Desk And Say 'i Don't Like The Way Reagan Is Running His Country.'

Don't Let The Doom Criers And The Cynics Persuade You That The Best Is Past.

Today, We're Taking A Break From The Concerns And The Bustle Of The Work-a-day World. But We're Also Making A New Beginning... Let Us Renew Our Faith That As Free Men And Women We Still Have The Power To Better Our Lives, And Let Us Resolve To Face The Challenges Of The New Year Holding That Conviction Firmly In Our Hearts. That, After All, Is Our Greatest Strength And Our Greatest Gift As Americans.

A People Free To Choose Will Always Choose Peace.

Where There's Liberty, Art Succeeds.

We Must Be Cautious In Claiming God Is On Our Side. I Think The Real Question We Must Answer Is, Are We On His Side?

Our Nation Will Prosper Or Decline In Direct Proportion To Our Selection Of Leaders Who Are Guided By The Holy Spirit. If We Fail To Select Godly Leaders Our Destiny Will Surely Be As That Of The Roman Empire.

I Can't Claim To Know The Words Of All The National Anthems In The World, But I Don't Know Of Any Other That Ends With A Question And A Challenge As Ours Does: Does That Flag Still Wave O'er The Land Of The Free And The Home Of The Brave? That Is What We Must All Ask.

Nations Do Not Distrust Each Other Because They Are Armed. They Are Armed Because They Distrust Each Other.

No Mother Would Ever Willingly Sacrifice Her Sons For Territorial Gain, For Economic Advantage, For Ideology.

It's Just Too Bad We Can't Have An Epidemic Of Botulism.

When I've Heard All I Need To Make A Decision, I Don't Take A Vote. I Make A Decision.

Government Exists To Protect Us From Each Other. Where Government Has Gone Beyond Its Limits Is In Deciding To Protect Us From Ourselves.

Our Liberties, Our Values, All For Which America Stands Is Safe Today Because Brave Men And Women Have Been Ready To Face The Fire At Freedom's Front. And We Thank God For Them.

The Nra Believes America's Laws Were Made To Be Obeyed And That Our Constitutional Liberties Are Just As Important Today As 200 Years Ago. And By The Way, The Constitution Does Not Say Government Shall Decree The Right To Keep And Bear Arms. The Constitution Says 'the Right Of The People To Keep And Bear Arms Shall Not Be Infringed.'

An Actor Knows Two Important Things - To Be Honest In What He Is Doing And To Be In Touch With The Audience. That's Not Bad Advice For A Politician Either.

Every Year, An Average Of 9,200 Americans Are Murdered By Handguns, According To Department Of Justice Statistics. This Does Not Include Suicides Or The Tens Of Thousands Of Robberies, Rapes And Assaults Committed With Handguns. This Level Of Violence Must Be Stopped.

The Future Belongs To The Free.

No Nation In History Has Ever Survived A Tax Burden That Reached A Third Of Its National Income.

Every Honor Is Appropriate For The Courageous Americans Who Made The Supreme Sacrifice For Our Nation At Pearl Harbor And In The Many Battles That Followed In World War Ii. Their Sacrifice Was For A Cause, Not For Conquest; For A World That Would Be Safe For Future Generations. Their Devotion Must Never Be Forgotten.

Simple Fairness Dictates That Government Must Not Raise Taxes On Families Struggling To Pay Their Bills.

When People Tell Me That I Became President On January 20th, 1981, I Feel I Have To Correct Them. You Don't Become President Of The United States. You Are Given Temporary Custody Of An Institution Called The Presidency, Which Belongs To Our People.

When Those Who Are Governed Do Too Little, Those Who Govern Can - And Often Will - Do Too Much.

There Are No Easy Answers' But There Are Simple Answers. We Must Have The Courage To Do What We Know Is Morally Right.

Directly Down The Lawn And Accross The Ellipse From The White House Are Those Ordered, Classic Lines Of The Jefferson Memorial And The Eyes Of The 19-foot Statue That Gaze Directly Into The White House, A Reminder To Any Of Us Who Might Occupy That Mansion Of The Quality Of Mind And Generosity Of Heart That Once Abided There And Has Been So Rarely Seen There Again.

We Must Realize That No Arsenal Or No Weapon In Arsenals Of The World Is So Formidable As The Will And Moral Courage Of Free Men And Women. It Is A Weapon Our Adversaries In Today's World Do Not Have. It Is A Weapon That We As Americans Do Have. Let That Be Understood By Those Who Practice Terrorism And Prey Upon Their Neighbors. As For The Enemies Of Freedom, Those Who Are Potential Adversaries, They Will Be Reminded That Peace Is The Highest Aspiration Of The American People. We Will Negotiate For It, Sacrifice For It; We Will Not Surrender For It, Now Or Ever. We Are Americans.

Unless Bureaucracy Is Constantly Resisted, It Breaks Down Representative Government And Overwhelms Democracy.

There Are No Words To Express The Extraordinary Strength And Character Of This Breed Of People We Call American. They Are The Kind Of Men And Women Tom Paine Had In Mind When He Wrote, During The Darkest Days Of The American Revolution, We Have It In Our Power To Begin The World Over Again.

Cold, Hungry, Scared As Hell Inside, But Too Damn Brave To Admit It.

Socialists Ignore The Side Of Man That Is The Spirit. They Can Provide You Shelter, Fill Your Belly With Bacon And Beans, Treat You When You're Ill, All The Things Guaranteed To A Prisoner Or A Slave. They Don't Understand That We Also Dream.

I'm Not A Politician By Profession. I Am A Citizen Who Decided I Had To Be Personally Involved In Order To Stand Up For My Own Values And Beliefs. My Candidacy Is Based On My Record, And For That Matter, My Entire Life.

If You're Explaining, You're Losing.

If You Don't Know Whether A Body Is Alive Or Dead, You Would Never Bury It. I Think This Consideration Itself Should Be Enough For All Of Us To Insist On Protecting The Unborn.

No Government Ever Voluntarily Reduces Itself In Size.

Government Is Not The Solution, But Rather The Cause Of Our Problems.

God...should Never Have Been Expelled From America's Schools. As We Struggle To Teach Our Children...we Dare Not Forget That Our Civilization Was Built By Men And Women Who Placed Their Faith In A Loving God. If Congress Can Begin Each Day With A Moment Of Prayer...so Then Can Our Sons And Daughters.

I Call Upon The Scientific Community In Our Country, Those Who Gave Us Nuclear Weapons, To Turn Their Great Talents Now To The Cause Of Mankind And World Peace: To Give Us The Means Of Rendering These Nuclear Weapons Impotent And Obsolete.

Today, We're Taking A Break From The Concerns And The Bustle Of The Work-a-day World. But We're Also Making A New Beginning. As We Gather Around Our Dining Room Tables For The Midday Meal, Let Us Thank God For Life And The Blessings He's Put Before Us. High Among Them Are Our Families, Our Freedom, And The Opportunities Of A New Year.

The Trouble With Our Liberal Friends Is Not That They're Ignorant; It's Just That They Know So Much That Isn't So.

Baseball Is Our National Pastime, That Is If You Discount Political Campaigning.

The Person Who Agrees With You 80 Percent Of The Time Is A Friend And An Ally - Not A 20 Percent Traitor.

In This New World Economy, National Boundaries Are Increasingly Becoming Obsolete.

I Think We Should Keep The Grain And Export The Farmers.

The Same Government That Requires A Taxpaying Citizen To Document Every Statement On His Tax Return Decrees That Questioning A Welfare Applicant Demeans And Humiliates Him.

I Heard One Presidential Candidate Say That What This Country Needed Was A President For The Nineties. I Was Set To Run Again. I Thought He Said A President In His Nineties.

May Every Day Be A New Beginning, And Every Dawn Bring Us Closer To That Shining City Upon A Hill.

Our System Freed The Individual Genius Of Man. Released Him To Fly As High & As Far As His Own Talent & Energy Would Take Him. We Allocate Resources Not By Government. Decision But By The Millions Of Decisions Customers Make When They Go Into The Market. Place To Buy. If Something Seems Too High-priced We Buy Something Else. Thus Resources Are Steered Toward Those Things The People Want Most At The Price They Are Willing To Pay. It May Not Be A Perfect System But It's Better Than Any Other That's Ever Been Tried.

Fellow Americans, Our Duty Is Before Us Tonight. Let Us Go Forward, Determined To Serve Selflessly A Vision Of Man With God, Government For People, And Humanity At Peace. For It Is Now Our Task To Tend And Preserve, Through The Darkest And Coldest Nights, That "sacred Fire Of Liberty" That President Washington Spoke Of Two Centuries Ago, A Fire That Tonight Remains A Beacon To All Oppressed Of The World, Shining Forth From This Kindly, Pleasant, Greening Land We Call America.

We Can't Help Everyone, But Everyone Can Help Someone.

Perhaps No Custom Reveals Our Character As A Nation So Clearly As Our Celebration Of Thanksgiving Day.

More Than A Decade Ago, A Supreme Court Decision Literally Wiped Off The Books Of Fifty States Statutes Protecting The Rights Of Unborn Children. Abortion On Demand Now Takes The Lives Of Up To 1.5 Million Unborn Children A Year. Human Life Legislation Ending This Tragedy Will Some Day Pass The Congress, And You And I Must Never Rest Until It Does. Unless And Until It Can Be Proven That The Unborn Child Is Not A Living Entity, Then Its Right To Life, Liberty, And The Pursuit Of Happiness Must Be Protected.

Pursuit Of Happiness

We Seek A Constitutional Amendment To Permit Voluntary School Prayer. God Should Never Have Been Expelled From America's Classrooms In The First Place.

Through You, We Feel As Giants, Once Again.

Even Now I Wonder What I Might Have Accomplished If I'd Studied Harder

Please Assure Me That You Are All Republicans.

If I Thought There Was Some Reason To Be Concerned About Them, I Wouldn't Be Sleeping In This House Tonight. (when Asked About Continued Presence Of Soviet Nuclear Submarines Along Us Coastlines)

It Should Be Clear To Everyone That The Nation's Steadfast Policy Should Afford Every American Of Working Age A Realistic Opportunity To Acquire The Ownership And Control Of Some Meaningful Form Of Property In A Growing National Economy.

If I'd Gotten The Job I Wanted At Montgomery Ward, I Suppose I Would Never Have Left Illinois.

You Can't Be For Big Government, Big Taxes And Big Bureaucracy And Still Be For The Little Guy.

All Of Us Can See What Happens Once You Establish The Precedent That The Government Can Determine A Man's Working Place And His Working Methods, Determine His Employment. From Here It's A Short Step To All The Rest Of Socialism, To Determining His Pay....he Will Wait For The Government To Tell Him Where He Will Go To Work And What He Will Do.

Almost All The Worlds' Constitutions Are Documents In Which Governments Tell The People What Their Privileges Are. Our Constitution Is A Document In Which We The People Tell The Government What It Is Allowed To Do. We The People Are Free.

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.

Law And Freedom Must Be Indivisible Partners. For Without Law, There Can Be No Freedom, Only Choas And Disorder; And Without Freedom, Law Is But A Cynical Veneer For Injustice And Oppression.

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