Great Throughts Treasury

"The distance between the present system and our proposal is like comparing the distance between a Model T and the space shuttle. And I should know I've seen both."

"The family has always been the cornerstone of American society. Our families nurture, preserve, and pass on to each succeeding generation the values we share and cherish, values that are the foundation of our freedoms."

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

"The Democrats may remember their lines, but how quickly they forget the lessons of the past. I have witnessed five major wars in my lifetime, and I know how swiftly storm clouds can gather on a peaceful horizon. The next time a Saddam Hussein takes over Kuwait, or North Korea brandishes a nuclear weapon, will we be ready to respond? In the end, it all comes down to leadership, and that is what this country is looking for now."

"The Founding Fathers knew a government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing."

"The full consequences of a default or even the serious prospect of default by the United States are impossible to predict and awesome to contemplate. Denigration of the full faith and credit of the United States would have substantial effects on the domestic financial markets and on the value of the dollar in exchange markets. The Nation can ill afford to allow such a result. The risks, the cost, the disruptions, and the incalculable damage lead me to but one conclusion: the Senate must pass this legislation before the Congress adjourns."

"The freedom fighters of Nicaragua ... are the moral equal of our Founding Fathers and the brave men and women of the French Resistance."

"The future doesn't belong to the faint of heart. It belongs to the brave."

"The 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."

"The greatest security for Israel is to create new Egypts."

"The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things."

"The future is best decided by ballots, not bullets."

"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."

"The history of our civilization, the great advances that made it possible, is not a story of cynics or doom criers. It is a gallant chronicle of the optimists, the determined people, men and women, who dreamed great dreams and dared to try whatever it took to make them come true."

"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."

"The more government takes in taxes, the less incentive people have to work. What coal miner or assembly-line worker jumps at the offer of overtime when he knows Uncle Sam is going to take 60 percent or more of his extra pay?"

"The little dictator who went to Moscow in his green fatigues to receive a bear hug did not forsake the doctrine of Lenin when he returned to the West and appeared in a two-piece suit. (On Daniel Ortega Saavedra)"

"The more the plans fail, the more the planners plan."

"The miracle of life is given by One greater than ourselves, but once given, each life is ours to nurture and preserve, to foster, not only for today's world but for a better one to come. There is no purpose more noble than for us to sustain and celebrate life in a turbulent world, and that is what we must do now. We have no higher duty, no greater cause as humans. Life and the preservation of freedom to live it in dignity is what we are on this Earth to do. Everything we work to achieve must seek that end so that someday our prime ministers, our premiers, our presidents, and our general secretaries will talk not of war and peace, but only of peace."

"The one irrefutable lesson of the entire postwar period [is] contradicting the notion that rigid government controls are essential to economic development."

"The one thing our Founding Fathers could not foresee -- they were farmers, professional men, businessmen giving of their time and effort to an idea that became a country -- was a nation governed by professional politicians who had an interest in getting re-elected. They probably envisioned a fellow serving a couple of hitches and then eagerly looking forward to getting back to the farm."

"The neutron warhead is a defensive weapon designed to offset the great superiority that the Soviet Union has on the western front against the NATO nations."

"The most powerful force we can enlist against the Federal deficit is an ever-expanding American economy, unfettered and free."

"The same technology transforming our lives can solve the greatest problem of the 20th century. A security shield can one day render nuclear weapons obsolete and free mankind from the prison of nuclear terror. America met one historic challenge and went to the Moon. Now America must meet another: to make our strategic defense real for all the citizens of planet Earth."

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

"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."

"The size of the federal budget is not an appropriate barometer of social conscience or charitable concern."

"The Soviet Union is an Evil Empire, and Soviet communism is the focus of evil in the modern world"

"The Soviet Union would remain a one-party nation even if an opposition party were permitted-because everyone would join that party."

"The taxpayer -- that's someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take the civil service examination."

"The struggle now going on for the world will never be decided by bombs or rockets, by armies or military might. The real crisis we face today is a spiritual one; at root, it is a test of moral will and faith."

"The ultimate determinant in the struggle now going on for 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 and the ideals to which we are dedicated."

"The time has come to turn to God and reassert our trust in Him for the healing of America... our country is in need of and ready for a spiritual renewal."

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

"The United States has much to offer the third world war."

"The United States is unique because we are an empire of ideals."

"The United States remains the last best hope for a mankind plagued by tyranny and deprivation. America is no stronger than its people -- and that means you and me. Well, I believe in you, and I believe that if we work together, then one day we will say, “We fought the good fight. We finished the race. We kept the faith. And to our children and our children's children, we can say, 'We did all what could be done in the brief time that was given us here on earth.'”"

"The very key to our success has been our ability, foremost among nations, to preserve our lasting values by making change work for us rather than against us."

"The war in Vietnam threatened to tear our society apart, and the political and philosophical disagreements that separated each side continue, to some extent. It's been said that these memorials reflect a hunger for healing."

"The vote on the Peacekeeper is also a vote on Geneva. Rejecting the Peacekeeper will knock the legs out from under the negotiating table. (On importance of the MX missile)"

"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."

"The White House is the leakiest place I've ever been in. (On special measures to ensure secrecy of plans to bomb Libya)"

"There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect."

"There are no such things as limits to growth, because there are no limits to the human capacity for intelligence, imagination, and wonder."

"There can be no real peace while one American is dying some place in the world for the rest of us. We are at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars, and it has been said if we lose that war, and in so doing lose this way of freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening… If we lose freedom here [in America], there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth."

"There is a mandate to impose a voluntary return to traditional values."

"There are no easy answers' but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right."

"There is today in the United States as much forest as there was when Washington was at Valley Forge."

"There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don't care who gets the credit."

"There were so many candidates on the platform that there were not enough promises to go around."