Great Throughts Treasury

"In this springtime of hope, some lights seem eternal; America's is."

"Inflation is as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber and as deadly as a hit man."

"Isn't it strange that ... people build walls to keep an enemy out, and there's only one part of the world and one philosophy where they have to build walls to keep their people in"

"Information is the oxygen of the modern age. It seeps through the walls topped by barbed wire, it wafts across the electrified borders. ... The Goliath of totalitarianism will be brought down by the David of the microchip."

"It (Unemployment Insurance) provides prepaid vacations for a segment of our country which has made it a way of life."

"It doesn't do good to open doors for someone who doesn't have the price to get in. If he has the price, he may not need the laws. There is no law saying the Negro has to live in Harlem or Watts."

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

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

"It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so."

"It's difficult to believe that people are still starving in this country because food isn't available"

"It is time to realize we are too great a nation for small dreams. We're not -- as some would have us believe -- doomed to an inevitable fate."

"It was leadership here at home that gave us strong American influence abroad, and the collapse of imperial Communism. Great nations have responsibilities to lead, and we should always be cautious of those who would lower our profile, because they might just wind up lowering our flag."

"It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first."

"It's time we asked ourselves if we still know the freedoms intended for us by the Founding Fathers. James Madison said, 'We base all our experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government.' This idea that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power, is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves."

"It's surprising what you can accomplish when no one is concerned about who gets the credit."

"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."

"I've never been able to understand why a Republican contributor is a 'fat cat' and a Democratic contributor of the same amount of money is a 'public-spirited philanthropist'."

"It's time we reduced the federal budget and left the family budget alone."

"I've often said there's nothing better for the inside of a man than the outside of a horse."

"I've often wondered, what if all of us in the world discovered that we were threatened by a greater power from outer space from another planet -- wouldn't we all of a sudden find that we didn't have any differences between us at all?"

"Let friend and foe alike know that America has the muscle to back up its words."

"Let us be sure that those who come after will say of us in our time, that in our time we did everything that could be done. We finished the race; we kept them free; we kept the faith."

"I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here."

"Let us not forget who we are. Drug abuse is a repudiation of everything America is."

"Let us resolve that we will stop spreading dependency and start spreading opportunity; that we will stop spreading bondage and start spreading freedom."

"Let us ask ourselves; 'What kind of people do we think we are?'"

"Life is one grand, sweet song, so start the music."

"Man is not free unless government is limited."

"Many Americans today, just as they did 200 years ago, feel burdened, stifled, and sometimes even oppressed by government that has grown too large, too bureaucratic, too wasteful, too unresponsive, too uncaring about people and their problems. I believe we can embark on a new age of reform in this country and an era of national renewal, an era that will reorder the relationship between citizen and government, that will make government again responsive to people, that will revitalize the values of family, work, and neighborhood and that will restore our private and independent social institutions."

"Make no mistake, abortion-on-demand is not a right guaranteed by the Constitution. No serious scholar, including one disposed to agree with the Court's result, has argued that the framers of the Constitution intended to create such a right."

"Live simply, love generously, care deeply, speak kindly, leave the rest to God."

"Millions of individuals making their own decisions in the marketplace will always allocate resources better than any centralized government planning process."

"Middle age is when you're faced with two temptations and you choose the one that will get you home by nine o'clock."

"My years in your service will always be very special to me. The inspiration you have given me will burn brightly in my heart long after I have left the lights of the White House behind."

"Nations do not mistrust each other because they are armed; they are armed because they mistrust each other."

"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."

"Money can't buy happiness but it will get you a better class of memories"

"Most tax revisions didn't improve the system, they made it more like Washington itself complicated, unfair, cluttered with gobbledygook and loopholes designed for those with the power and influence to hire high-priced legal and tax advisers."

"My belief has always been . . . that wherever in this land any individual's constitutional rights are being unjustly denied, it is the obligation of the federal government -- at point of bayonet if necessary -- to restore that individual's constitutional rights."

"My fellow Americans, there's an old saying that nothing spreads so quickly as a rumor, so I thought it was time to speak with you directly, to tell you first-hand about our dealings with Iran."

"My fellow Americans I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes. (Comment while testing a microphone before a broadcast 11 Aug 84)"

"My philosophy of life is that if we make up our mind what we are going to make of our lives, then work hard toward that goal, we never lose - somehow we win out."

"My fellow Americans, I must speak to you tonight about a mounting danger in Central America that threatens the security of the United States. This danger will not go away it will grow worse, much worse, if we fail to take action now."

"Never let the things you can't do stop you from doing what you can."

"No arsenal ... is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women."

"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!"

"No people in all history paid a higher price for freedom. And no people have done so much to advance the dignity of man. We are called materialistic. May be so…but our materialism has made our children the biggest, tallest, most handsome, and intelligent generations of Americans yet. They will live longer with fewer illnesses, learn more, see more of the world, and have more success in realizing their personal dreams and ambitions than any other people in any other period of our history - because of our materialism…I think on our side of civilization and on the other side is the law of the jungle…We all have to recognize that this country has been handed the responsibility, greater than any nation, to preserve some 6000 years of civilization against the barbarians."

"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."

"No mother would ever willingly sacrifice her sons for territorial gain, for economic advantage, for ideology."

"No matter what time it is, wake me, even if it's in the middle of a Cabinet meeting."