Famous Quotations

Ronald Reagan

Facts are stupid things.

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.

How do you tell a communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx or Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin.

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.

One way to make sure crime doesn't pay would be to let the government run it.

Politics is not a bad profession.If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book.

Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.

The Government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a healthy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other.

Franklin Roosevelt:

A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car, but if he has a university education he may steal the whole railroad.

A radical is a man who has both feet planted firmly in the air.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Will Rogers:

Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock.

Everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody else.

It doesn't matter if you're on the right track, if you don't move, you'll get run over.

The minute you read something you can't understand, you can almost be sure it was drawn up by a lawyer.

I'm not concerned about the return on my money, I'm concerned about the return of my money.

My folks didn't come over on the Mayflower but they were here to meet the boat.

Everyone is ignorant, only on different subjects.

We can't all be heroes because someone has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by.

Therodore Roosevelt

Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.

The most successful politician is he who says what everybody is thinking most often and in the loudest voice.

Harry Truman:

The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.

I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.

It's a recession when your neighbour loses his job; it's a depression when you lose your own.

Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.

Napoleon Bonaparte:

Ability is nothing without opportunity.

Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent.

A man will fight harder for his interests than for his rights.

Winston Churchhill:

A Diplomat is someone who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you look forward to the trip.

A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

A prisoner of war is a man who tries to kill you and fails, and then asks you not to kill him. Although prepared for martyrdom, I preferred that it be postponed.

Any man who is under 30 and is not a liberal, has no heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains.

An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile hoping that it will eat him last.

Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality that guarantees all the others.

Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount, and the tigers are getting hungry.

I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.

If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future.

Kites rise highest against the wind: not with it.

No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

Perhaps it is better to be irresponsible and right than to be responsible and wrong.

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.

Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts.

The Americans will always do the right thing... after they've exhausted all the alternatives.

The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.

The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.

The whole history of the world is summed up in the fact that, when nations are strong, they are not always just, and when they wish to be just, they are no longer strong.

There is no such thing as a good tax.

We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.

Without courage, all other virtues lose their meaning.