Ronald Reagan Quotes

The people of America at some point are gonna have to realize that relying on government to fix everything is foolhardy.

Big-government liberals don't like people with a sense of independence because independent people don't need big government.

There are many things the government cant do, many good purposes it must renounce. It must leave them to the enterprise of others. It cannot feed the people. It cannot enrich the people. It cannot teach the people. It cannot convert the people.

When taxes are too high, people go hungry. When the government is too intrusive, people lose their spirit. Act for the people's benefit. Trust them; leave them alone.

People are probably going to realize they can live with a lot less government than what they thought they needed.

When government accepts responsibility for people, then people no longer take responsibility for themselves.

You came out of your mother’s belly without government. You have lived so far without the help of government …. How many people in this world live without government, yet do well enough, and are well looked upon?

The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves -- in their separate, and individual capacities....In all that the people can individually do for themselves, government ought not interfere.

There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first.

I don't believe in a government that protects us from ourselves.

I do not belive that Washington should do for the people wha they can do for themselves through local and private effort.

I do not want to live under a philanthropy. I do not want to be taken care of by the government.... We do not want a benevolent government. We want a free and a just government.

Keep government out of the money of the people, schools of the people, and will of the people.

People constantly requesting government intervention are casting their problems at society. And, you know, there's no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours.

I want the people of America to be able to work less for the government, and more for themselves

The inherent purpose of American government is let people seek their own goals and to encourage them to be responsible on the various adventures they have on their way to those goals, good, bad, and otherwise.

Why is it is claimed that if people won't or can't take care of their own needs, that people in government can do it for them?

Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.

Taxation is not charity. It is not voluntary. As we shrink the state and make government smaller, we will find that more and more people are able to take care of themselves.

People in Oklahoma don't wake up every morning wondering what the government is going to do for them.

My concept of government's role in people's lives is that it is limited but legitimate, and essential when people have nowhere else to turn.

All communities are apt to look to government for too much ... especially at periods of sudden embarrassment and distress. This ought not to be.

When government tries to serve as a parent or teacher or a moral guide, individuals may be tempted to discard their own sense of responsibility, to argue that only government must help people in need. If we've learned anything in the past quarter century, it is that we cannot federalize virtue.

In a free society, the ‘vision thing’ is left to private individuals; civil servants are kept on a tight leash, because free people understand that a ‘visionary’ bureaucrat is a voracious one and that the grander the government... the poorer and less free the people.

In a free society a large degree of human activity is none of the government's business. We should make criminal what's going to hurt other people and other than that we should leave it to people to make their own choices.