Ronald Reagan

(1911-)

Attributed

• "I'm not smart enough to lie."

• "A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when you get another job."

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

• "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."

• "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."

• "Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other."

• "I favor the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and it must be enforced at gunpoint if necessary."

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

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

• "You can tell a lot about a fellow's character by the way he eats jelly beans."