Reagan served from 1981 to 1989 as the 40th president of the United States. At the age of 69, he was the oldest man ever sworn into that office. Reagan's previous executive experience included two terms as president of the Screen Actors Guild (1952, 1959-60) and governor of the nation's most populous state, California (1966-74).

Many books have been written about Ronald Reagan which describe his life in great detail. Reagan also wrote two biographies.

This page is dedicated to the winning of Cold War and the resulting freedom for hundreds of millions of people; to the revival of the American Spirit from a point of near-surrender to one of unparalleled greatness; and to the Reagan Era expansion—one that would grow to become the greatest peace-time expansion in U.S. history. The Reagan Era was a time in which every income quintile saw gains in overall wealth and income, a time in which the middle class gained the most and our economy grew by a third.

Ronald Reagan championed four "Pillars of Freedom": individual liberty, economic opportunity, global democracy and national pride

Welfare's purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence.

Los Angeles Times, January 7, 1970

It is the Soviet Union that runs against the tide of history.... [It is] the march of freedom and democracy which will leave Marxism- Leninism on the ash heap of history as it has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people.

Speech to Britain's Parliament, June, 1982

Let us beware that while they [Soviet rulers] preach the supremacy of the state, declare its omnipotence over individual man, and predict its eventual domination over all the peoples of the earth, they are the focus of evil in the modern world.... I urge you to beware the temptation ... to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong, good and evil.

Speech to the National Association of Evangelicals, March 8, 1983

We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we may always be free.

Normandy, France, June 6, 1984

The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or the next. It was the deep knowledge -- and pray God we have not lost it -- that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest.

Normandy, France, June 6, 1984.

We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them -- this morning, as they prepared for their journey, and waved good-bye, and "slipped the surly bonds of earth" to "touch the face of God."

Speech about the Challenger disaster, January 28, 1986

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.

Remarks in Arlington, Virginia, September 25, 1987

Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

Speech near the Berlin Wall, 1987

Freedom is the right to question and change the established way of doing things. It is the continuous revolution of the marketplace. It is the understanding that allows to recognize shortcomings and seek solutions.

Address to students at Moscow State University, May 31, 1988

Have we the courage and the will to face up to the immorality and discrimination of the progressive tax, and demand a return to traditional proportionate taxation? . . . Today in our country the tax collector's share is 37 cents of every dollar earned. Freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp.

October 27, 1964

If all of this seems like a great deal of trouble, think what's at stake. We are faced with the most evil enemy mankind has known in his long climb from the swamp to the stars. There can be no security anywhere in the free world if there is no fiscal and economic stability within the United States. Those who ask us to trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state are architects of a policy of accommodation.

Address to the nation, October 27, 1964

It's time we asked ourselves if we still know the freedoms intended for us by the Founding Fathers. James Madison said, "We base all our experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government." This idea that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power, is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.

Address to the nation, October 27, 1964

The poet called Miss Liberty's torch, "the lamp beside the golden door." Well, that was the entrance to America, and it still is. And now you really know why we're here tonight.

The glistening hope of that lamp is still ours. Every promise every opportunity is still golden in this land. And through that golden door our children can walk into tomorrow with the knowledge that no one can be denied the promise that is America.

Her heart is full; her torch is still golden, her future bright. She has arms big enough to comfort and strong enough to support, for the strength in her arms is the strength of her people. She will carry on in the eighties unafraid, unashamed, and unsurpassed.

In this springtime of hope, some lights seem eternal; America's is.

RNC speech, August 23, 1984