Ronald Reagan Quotes

It is astonishing that in a country so devoted to the individual, so many people should be afraid to speak.

I didn't understand how much senators and members of the House are not able to represent the people because they're too busy fundraising to maintain their seat in office. I hope we as a country start looking at how we can change that.

Being described as a stupid bureaucrat with no link to representative democracy is difficult to take.

In every country, politics is considered to be a waste of time.

We need to be constantly reminded that this is a representative democracy, and we need to be in tune to what people are talking about.

I support the ability of people to be able to burn the American flag if they want to. But people have the right in this country to debate it.

It goes to local authorities and even to members of Parliament so that individual citizens almost become people who want to sit and wait for their member of Parliament to come and solve the problem. Now that won't take you anywhere. And if you follow it, you will see that it feeds corruption in the country.

The free expression of the hopes and aspirations of a people is the greatest and only safety in a sane society.

We're going to make sure that the people who run for office and get elected are the ones who are going to work for the American people.

I like the idea that there's no censorship, because it's consistent with my views that we live in a free society and people ought to be able to express their views.

The people can never willfully betray their own interests: But they may possibly be betrayed by the representatives of the people; and the danger will be evidently greater where the whole legislative trust is lodged in the hands of one body of men, than where the concurrence of separate and dissimilar bodies is required in every public act.

It's not necessarily a brave thing, people talk about what they think about. There's people out there who love to talk about politics or where they think the countries headed. I don't talk about that I talk about...things that are a little trippier.

In a certain sense, and to a certain extent, he [the president] is the representative of the people. He is elected by them, as well as congress is. But can he, in the nature [of] things, know the wants of the people, as well as three hundred other men, coming from all the various localities of the nation? If so, where is the propriety of having a congress?

Representative democracy frequently manifests a disconnect between parliamentarians and the people, so that parliamentarians have agendas that do not correspond with the wishes of the electorate. This has led in many countries to apathy, cynicism and large-scale absenteeism in elections. What is needed is not only parliaments, but parliamentarians who genuinely represent the wishes of the electorate.

I have sworn to uphold the Constitution ... and a free press is absolutely vital to the freedom of this country.

In this time when a citizenry applauds the liberation of a country as it lives in fear of its own freedom, when people all over the country fear reprisal if they use their right to free speech, it is time to get angry. It is time to get fierce.

I'm not like a politician that goes around talking about family values. And I can't get fired from being a funny person because I did something that most people are disapproving of. I think people are just obsessed with this morality that people perceive as being the right and wrong way of doing stuff.

I would rather put up with Rush Limbaugh and live in a country where we all do have freedom of speech.

Bill Clinton persuaded some people that he was really a civilized character and his Administration had the best interests of humanity at heart. These days we don't have to put up with that nonsense. It's very clear that the George W. Bush Administration is out of control. It contains some truly dangerous people.

Free speech exercised both individually and through a free press, is a necessity in any country where people are themselves free.

I don't think we live in a place where we don't want people to be able to say when they disagree with the president or incoming administration.

It may well happen that the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be more constant to the public good than if pronounced by the people themselves.

If democracy is control by the people, as it is supposed to be, it is the right form of government. I believe in a complete democracy - individual, political, social, economic. If we really had that, which we don't now, it would be in harmony with divine purpose.

Freedom of press and freedom of speech: What a blessing for a country while in the hands of honest, patriotic men; what a curse if in the hands of designing demagogues.

Why is it when we have 10 million people in this country who say 'No', we still have a president who says 'Yes.' In a democracy, something's wrong here.