Ronald Reagan Quotes: Unforgettable Lines From The Former President (PHOTOS)

Americans across the country will celebrate the life of Ronald Reagan on February 6, the 100th anniversary of the former president and conservative icon's birth. In honor of the centennial, below, a slideshow of some of the most memorable quotes spoken by the 40th president of the United States.

The words are only a small piece of the Reagan legacy that will be honored and commemorated today.

(Click here to read about facts that might surprise you about the former president.)

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'Tear Down This Wall' - 1987

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"If you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here, to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." Arguably one of Reagan's best television moments, he urged Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to stop the communist hold over East Berlin and allow the country to unify under a democracy. Two years later, it happened in the dark of night. (MSNBC)

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"If you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here, to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall."

Arguably one of Reagan's best television moments, he urged Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to stop the communist hold over East Berlin and allow the country to unify under a democracy. Two years later, it happened in the dark of night.

(MSNBC)

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llozano said on 6 Sunday 2011 am28 11:22 am: I don't understand the Reagan love fest going on especially on the Huff Post. Maybe you can fool most of the people most of the time.

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Comments

[Richard Reynolds]

07:05 PM on 04/05/2011

I can think of a thousand more telling quotes. Reagan was the beginning of the mess we are currently in.

[Michael Samra]

11:48 AM on 02/21/2011

Oh my my.Whats the matter huff posters? You can't seem to handle the truth that America adores Ronald Reagan.Oh well,thats life I guess!

[European1919]

11:42 AM on 02/08/2011

A great comic talent. R.I.P.

[Thirdstone]

10:15 AM on 02/08/2011

Unforgettable Reagan quote: "Mommy?"

[NancyNaive]

10:00 AM on 02/08/2011

February 4, 1984 Reagan makes his famous "the US will not 'cut&run'" speech.
February 7, 1984 Reagan orders the Marines to retreat.

Well, for 3 days we were the "Home of the brave".

Reagan

[NancyNaive]

09:55 AM on 02/08/2011

Ironic ain't it?

There are so many people who have such fond memories of a President who was incapable of having any of his own.

[huffy2001]

12:04 PM on 02/11/2011

"I think I can't remember"

[Quasi-Stellar Object]

09:46 AM on 02/08/2011

How about these "unforgettable lines" from Ronald Reagan on AIDS:

"AIDS information can not be what some call 'value neutral.' After all, when it comes to preventing AIDS, don't medicine and morality teach the same lessons."
--Ronald Reagan, April 2, 1987 (audio here: http://www.actupny.org/reports/reagan.html)

"Maybe the Lord brought down this plague...because illicit sex is against the Ten Commandments."
--Ronald REagan quoted by biographer Edmund Morris


This man mentioned AIDS for the first time in public in 1987 after 25,000 of the Americans he was elected to protect and serve died of the disease as stood by judging and hating them...AND saying so publicly.

The discovery of cyanide in Tylenol capsules in October of 1982 got a huge amount of media attention and federal funding and support. In all 7 people died. "By comparison, 634 Americans had been stricken with AIDS by October 5, 1982. Of these, 260 were dead. There was no rush to spend money, mobilize public health officials, or issue regulations that might save lives."
--Randy Shilts, And the Band Played On, 1987. See page 191.

YOUR silence is consent.

[pfz]

02:44 PM on 02/09/2011

Well said.

[Scar]

09:02 AM on 02/08/2011

The Liberator. In November 1983, Reagan told visiting Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir that he had served as a photographer in a U.S. Army unit assigned to film Nazi death camps. He repeated the story to Simon Wiesenthal the following February. Reagan never visited or filmed a concentration camp; he spent World War II in Hollywood, making training films with the First Motion Picture Unit of the Army Air Corps.

[Scar]

09:00 AM on 02/08/2011

Reagan, in 1980 : "Because Vietnam was not a declared war, the veterans are not even eligible for the G. I. Bill of Rights with respect to education or anything."

[Scar]

08:56 AM on 02/08/2011

By the end of his term, 138 Reagan administration officials had been convicted, had been indicted, or had been the subject of official investigations for official misconduct and/or criminal violations.

[dadw5boys]

08:41 AM on 02/08/2011

We must raise the Retirement age forcing Americans to work longer while the Debt I have created lowers the Value of the U.S. Dollar. But Social Security will be safe until it is Bankrupt from paying the Interest on the Debt I created.
Ronnie McDonald

[Billar]

07:57 AM on 02/08/2011

Lets see Regan gave corporate welfare to defense contractors and called it Star Wars.
Sold arms illegally to Iran. It was called Iran/Contra.
Reagan's budget team savaged the school lunch program and declared that the condiment Ketchup as a vegetable.
Regan was a serial tax raiser.
Unemployment rose to 10.8 after Regan's 1981 tax cut. IMHO Regan was the cardboard cutout of the right.

[ghee99]

06:21 AM on 02/08/2011

and, dont forget

"What makes him think a middle-aged actor, who's played with a chimp, could have a future in politics?" -on Clint Eastwood's bid to become mayor of Carmel"

pretty funny guy, that reagan

and never got a big head, or lost perspective, thats for sure

[NancyNaive]

10:49 AM on 02/08/2011

The ability to form memories is key to having a perspective to lose.

It's just as probable that he meant that remark.

[ghee99]

06:07 AM on 02/08/2011

and one of my faves

"I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience." -during a 1984 presidential debate with Walter Mondale

[contrariandy]

05:48 AM on 02/08/2011

"Tear down this wall" was the worst delivery of Bonzo's long, lazy career. Plus, it didn't work, largely because it wasn't Gorby's wall to take down.

The wall was opened many years later by a minor German official and taken down by the German people; Reagan was out of office and had nothing to do with it.

Before RR came into office, the Cold War had been won and the moribund Soviet Union was ready to fall but his wasteful warmongering kept the Russian old guard in power delaying Gorbachev and Perestroika by many costly years in which RR foolishly spent borrowed money on military garbage that the American Middle Class is still paying for.

But, selling arms to Iran was an even greater sin against the American people; the worst case of Presidential deceit in American history.

[ghee99]

06:23 AM on 02/08/2011

yeah, the soviet union had NOTHING to do with east berlin being communist

NOTHING at all