Ronald Reagan Quotes

The Washington establishment think Republicans win elections by you don't stand for anything, you keep your head down, you don't rock the boat. You know what? Every time we do that, we get clobbered in the polls.

When a party sheds it principles for victory, it will inevitably end up with neither.

This will not be disloyalty but will show that as members of a party they are loyal first to the fine things for which the party stands and when it rejects those things or forgets the legitimate objects for which parties exist, then as a party it cannot command the honest loyalty of its members.

Fine Gael needs to be Fine Gael and needs to stand its ground. It should not sacrifice its politics for position in government.

The Republican party is not a church. It does not promulgate doctrine and then exclude those who fail to share it. But political parties must stand for something, or they will be unable to generate enthusiastic support from the volunteers needed to burn shoe leather and calories winning competitive elections.

David Cameron can change the branding of the party, but he can't change the beliefs.

The future of Conservatism lies in our beliefs and values, not by throwing them away. We need to shed associations that bind us to past failures, but hold faith with those things that make us Conservatives.

The Republican Party is an empty vessel unless we imbue it with values.

The more Democrats try to abandon the values and policies embodied in our platform, the more we will continue to lose. We can't win by running on incrementalism.

I would reject wholeheartedly any notion of a Labour Party that is not committed to returning to power at the first opportunity. Of course that needs to be principled power. But standing on the sidelines looking for the purest ideology is a dereliction of the duty for any Labour member.

It's impossible to imagine the Democratic Party seeking a pro-life, free-trading, non-protectionist deficit hawk.

The Labor Party is a party of conviction. The Liberal Party is a party of convenience.

The Democrats often seem like the Not Republican Party, no more and no less.

Liberalism itself has failed, and for a pretty good reason. It has been too often compromised by the people who represented it.

I went to my first national convention in 1976, when my family supported [Ronald] Reagan over [Gerald] Ford, so we've always been Republicans, but we've always wanted the Republican Party to be the party of fiscally conservative, limited-government types. And I think, sometimes, we haven't done that as well.

When our party had only seven men, it already had two principles. First, it wanted to be a party with a true ideology. And second, it wanted to be the one and only power in Germany.

I have no problem if you want to be a socialist. But for those people who are in the middle, you know, I don't know if you're really welcome in the Democratic Party, and I don't even know who the Republican Party is anymore. I have absolutely no idea.

That's not saying there's not a bunch of good Democrats. I'm sure there's a lot of people who still haven't figured that out yet or simply don't want to have that pessimistic of an outlook, but I think the Democratic Party is completely worthless.

The Democratic Party will live and continue to receive the support of the majority of Americans just so long as it remains a liberal party.

In the history of the nation, there has never been a political party so ridiculous as today's Democrats. It's as if all the brain-damaged people in America got together and formed a voting bloc.

I think that the principle of the Conservative Party is jealousy of liberty and of the people, only qualified by fear; but I think the principle of the Liberal Party is trust in the people, only qualified by prudence.

The Democrats are now an upscale party.

some people are democrats by choice, and some by necessity.

We should be in the business of protecting cherished institutions and our cultural heritage, otherwise what, I ask, is a Conservative party for? Indeed we are alienating people who have voted for us for all their lives, leaving them with no one to vote for.

Here's the thing about politics: It's not an expression of your moral purity and your ethics and your probity and your fond dreams of some utopian future. Progressive people constantly fail to get this.