Ronald Reagan Quotes

In America we believe there ought to be limits on government.

Can government really be active and, at the same time, limited? History suggests otherwise.

I start with a concern about the growth of federal government. I start with a perspective concerned about the growth of that power, and containing it within the bounds of the Constitution.

I would prefer the [USA] government to be the policeman and not the businessman.

I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.

My quarrel is not with the legitimate role of government but with the unlimited role of government.

[T]he powers granted by the proposed Constitution are the gift of the people, and may be resumed by them when perverted to their oppression, and every power not granted thereby remains with the people.

This is a country for, of, and by the people not for, of, and by the government. If we turn it over to them we cannot complain about what they're doing because this is a natural course of men and we have to hold their feet to the fire.

Before my tenure, people didn't seem to think that citizens had a right to limit the size of their government.

I don’t want to eliminate government. I just want to shrink it down to the size that you can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the tub.

Somehow liberals have been unable to acquire from birth what conservatives seem to be endowed with at birth: namely, a healthy skepticism of the powers of government to do good.

A government role in our society should be inherently suspect …. There is something inherently coercive in the nature of government.

By its nature, government is not subject to the profit-and-loss test, to the domination by the consumers, of the free market …. it need serve no one except itself. The only limit on government is the enormously wide one of people rising up to refuse to obey its orders (including taxes); short of such revolution, however, there is little to limit government or to check the entrenchment or burgeoning of its elite.

I don’t want to kill the government. I just want to shrink it down to a small enough size that I can flush it down the toilet.

Our devotion to individual freedom limits our readiness to give central government the power to override our traditional power structure.

There has been no organized effort to keep government down since Jefferson's day. Ever since then the American people have been bolstering up its powers and giving it more and more jurisdiction over their affairs. They pay for that folly in increased taxes and diminished liberties.

There is no virtue in denying the law of gravity, and there should be no virtue in denying the limitations of government. ... The more we glorify government, the more liberties we will lose.

When government gets too big, freedom is lost. Government is supposed to be the servant. But when a government can tax the people with no limit or restraint on what the government can take, then the government has become the master.

Ours was the first revolution in the history of mankind that truly reversed the course of government, and with three little words: 'We the people.' 'We the people' tell the government what to do, it doesn't tell us. 'We the people' are the driver, the government is the car. And we decide where it should go, and by what route, and how fast. Almost all the world's constitutions are documents in which governments tell the people what their privileges are. Our Constitution is a document in which 'We the people' tell the government what it is allowed to do. 'We the people' are free.

If more government is the answer, then it was a really stupid question.

Government is never more dangerous than when our desire to have it help us blinds us to its great power to harm us.

The problem is big government. If whoever controls government can impose his way upon you, you have to fight constantly to prevent the control from being harmful. With small, limited government, it doesn't much matter who controls it, because it can't do you much harm.

The best view of big government is in the rearview mirror as we leave it behind.

I believe that the government that governs best is a government that governs least, and by these standards we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq.

I do not subscribe to the doctrine that the people are the slaves and property of their government. I believe that government is for the use of the people, and not the people for the use of the government.