The Last Jeffersonian

Ronald Reagan's Dreams of America

Reagan was one of our most quotable presidents. He wrote and spoke tirelessly, and his simple style of expression wears well. Other people have said a lot about him, too.

Quotations

From Peggy Noonan, What I Saw at the Revolution:

“So where did you come from, Mr. President, and who are you, really? What are the forces that shaped you, and why are you so odd?” 

“I’m not odd,” he would say. “I’m only odd for a president.”

From a speech Reagan gave on September 9, 1974:

Whenever America has faced a crisis, we somehow always produce the leaders and the men needed to carry us through to victory. That is part of the strength of our system. It cannot be explained with the logical precision of a computer program. Perhaps that is because spiritual values can never be adequately measured in material terms. Things like faith, love of country, courage and dedication – they are all part of the inner strength of America. And sometimes, they do not become self-evident until there is a time of crisis.

From Reagan's speech at the Statue of Liberty centennial ceremonies, Governors Island, July 3, 1986:

I’ve spoken before of the tiny ship Arabella, a ship at anchor just off the Massachusetts coast. A little group of Puritans huddled on the deck. And then John Winthrop, who would later become the first governor of Massachusetts, reminded his fellow Puritans there on that tiny deck that they must keep faith with their God, that the eyes of all the world were upon them, and that they must not forsake the mission that God had sent them on, and they must be a light unto the nations of all the world—a shining city upon a hill.

Call it mysticism if you will, I have always believed there was some divine providence that placed this great land here between the two great oceans, to be found by a special kind of people from every corner of the world, who had a special love for freedom, and a special courage that enabled them to leave their own land, leave their friends and their countrymen, and come to this new and strange land to build a new world of peace and freedom and hope.

Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. Those who have known freedom, and then lost it, have never known it again.

Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson, also known for his acting career:

After spending a year in Washington, I long for the realism and sensitivity of Hollywood.

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

You may be weary of me sounding the same alarms. You might think, well, we have heard all this before, but somehow we muddled through. Well, that is like the window-washer who fell from the Empire State Building. When he passed the 20th floor, he said, "so far, so good."

Speech, October 29, 1972