The Notes: Ronald Reagan's Private Collection of Stories and Wisdom

by Ronald Reagan

  And now I must give a definition of what seems to me morally sound. If an artist believes that there is good & that there is evil, and in his work favors what seems to him good and expects the ultimate victory for it, then he is morally sound. If he does not believe in the existence of good & evil, or if believing in them, he asks or even anticipates the triumph of evil, he is morally unsound. To some artists the present good may seem evil & the present evil good. That has happened often in the case of a poet or prophet. A playwright cannot run so far ahead of his audience, for he must find a common denominator of his belief in his own generation & even the greatest, the loftiest, must say something which his age can understand. In brief I have found my religion in the theatre where I least expected to find it, & where few will credit that it exists. But it is there, & any man among you who tries to write plays will find himself serving it, if only because he can succeed in no other way. He will discover, if he works through his apprenticeship that the theatre is the central artistic symbol of the struggle of good & evil within men. Its teaching is that the struggle is eternal & unremitting, that the forces which tend to drag men down are always present, always ready to attack, that the forces which make for good cannot sleep through a night without danger.

  M. Anderson Began The Above Lecture With These Words

  The story of a play must be the story of what happens within the mind or heart of a man or woman. It cannot deal primarily with external events. The external events are only symbols of what goes on within . . . Excellence on stage is always moral excellence. A struggle on the part of a hero to better his material circumstances is of not interest in a play unless his character is somehow tried in the fire, & unless he comes out of his trial a better man.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Loving means to love that which is unlovable or it is not virtue at all; forgiving means to pardon the unpardonable or it is no virtue at all; faith means believing in the unbelievable or it is no virtue at all. And to hope means hoping when things are hopeless or it is no virtue at all.

  Judge Learned Hand

  Charity is injurious unless it helps the recipient become independent of it.

  Nothing which is morally wrong can ever be politically right.

  One way to settle a disagreement is on the basis of what is right not who is right.

  Seneca

  He who knows no ports to sail for finds no winds favorable.

  George Washington

  Let us raise a standard to which the wise & honest can repair.

  Wendell Willkie

  Let us not tear it asunder. For no man knows when it is destroyed where or when man will find its protective warmth again.

  Marie Montessori

  When asked why she didn’t reply to her critics replied that if she were climbing a ladder & a dog came yapping at her heels she would have 2 choices. Either she could stop & kick the dog or she could continue to climb the ladder. She preferred to climb.

  ON POLITICAL THEATER

  Rene Wormser, Council for House Spec. Committee on Tax Exempt Foundation

  Research & experimental stations were established at selected U’s, notably Columbia, Stanford, & Chi. Here some of the worst mischief in recent ed. was born. In these Rockefeller & Carnegies established vineyards worked many of the principal characters in the story of suborning or Am. ed. Here foundations nurtured some of the most ardent academic advocates of upsetting the Am. system & supplanting it with a Socialist state. Whatever its earlier origins or manifestations there is little doubt that the radical movement in ed. was accelerated by an organized Socialist movement in the U.S.

  Jack Henning, Exec. California AFL-CIO, Re. R.R.CGOV

  Within the past 2 yrs. Gov R. has signed bills increasing soc. insurance benefits for injured and unemployed Calif. workers by more than $266 mil. No Gov. R or D in the history of Calif. has ever done anything like that.

  Sen. McGovern, Inconsistencies of A Liberal

  Wash. Post 5/17/72—I have sought not to whip up emotions. There is plenty of anger & tension without our leaders adding to it. I think a conciliatory approach is needed.

  Cand. for Pres. McGovern

  Wash. Riots—May ’71—Well if I were Pres. there wouldn’t be demonstrating like that. Those people would be having dinner in the W.H. instead of protesting outside.

  N.Y. Times—3/19/72—But Henry Jackson destroyed whatever chance he had of becoming the Dem. nominee by embracing racialism in the anti-bussing campaign.

  United Press 4/7/72—Thieu is a corrupt dictator who jails opponents. A despicable creature who doesn’t merit the life of a single Am. soldier or for that matter a simple Vietnamese.

  Sen. McGovern—When It Was LBJ’s War

  I support the strafing ordered by Pres. Johnson because I agree when our forces are attacked & our interests are under fire we have to respond with appropriate retaliation.

  N. Vietnam can’t benefit anymore than S. Vietnam from a prolonged conflict. I would hope that we would wage such a conflict rather than surrender the area to communism.

  A.P. 4/16/72

  Pres. Nixon has descended to a new level of barbarism & foolhardiness to save his own face and prop up the corrupt regime of Thieu.

  Speech Cath. U. 4/20/72

  I think the re-election of Pres. Nixon would be an open hunting right for this man to give in to all his impulses for a major war against the people of Indo-China.

  6/29/72 Interview with A.P. Gregg Herrington

  I’ve said many times that the Nixon bombing policy on Indo-China is the most barbaric action that any country has committed since Hitler’s efforts to exterminate the Jews in Germany in the 30s.

  L.A. Times 8/30/72—Re: Reducing Our U.N. Forces by 12,000

  Mr. Nixon’s policy threatens the men we have remaining there with a grave & growing threat of annihilation. I want to be blunt about it—Nixon’s playing pols. with the lives of Am. soldiers & with Am. prisoners rotting in their cells in Hanoi. He’s putting his own pol. selfish interests ahead of the W.F. of those young Ams. & of the taxpayers of this country who are bearing the burden.

  “Life” 7/7/72 On Death Of J. Edgar Hoover

  I could feel nothing but relief that he was no longer a pub. servant.

  P. 93 Mcgovern’s Biog.

  I don’t know how Karl Mundt felt about me but I know I hated his guts. I hated him so much I lost my balance.

  Cong. Record Sept. 8 1964—P. 21690

  I regard Mr. Goldwater as the most unstable, radical & extremist ever to run for the presidency in either pol. party.

  Tax Law

  Sec. 351(e)(1) Internal Revenue Code—deals with collapsible corps.—The 1st sentence contains 551 words (Since ’76 tax reform act).

  Last sentence of sec. 509(a)(5) of the Code—“For purposes of paragraph 3 an org. described in par. 2 shall be deemed to include an org. described in Section 501(c) 4, 5, or 6 which would be described in par. 2 if it were an org. described in sec. 501(c)(3).

  Inc. tax law was passed in 1914. Since then Dems. have cut the tax once. Repubs. have cut it 14 times. I used this in a speech in 1978. A ’78 poll had shown 95% of people rated inflat. as our biggest problem. 81% put high cost of govt. & taxes 2nd. In some poll a majority said Dems. are better at cutting taxes than Republicans.

  Norman Thomas

  Our Dem. friends are too Utopian, they promise too much to everyone too easily. Ind. News. Oct. 1960.

  Gov. E. Warren, 1948

  Large counties are far more important in the life of our state than their population bears to the entire pop. of the st. It is for this reason that I have never been in favor of re-distributing representation in our Sen. on a strictly population basis.

  Oct. 1957, “Foreign Affairs”

  Sen. J. F. Kennedy urged that we disengage from European conservatives & establish closer liaison with the soc. forces. He declared—“The age of Adenauer is over.”

  Dr. John Hannah, Pres. Michigan St.

  Spea
ks out for “Nat. direction of education as a primary instrument of nat. policy.”

  Mr. H. Thomas James, School of Ed. Stanford U.

  As the states have denied, 1st to the family, & then to local communities, the right to make decision on ed. contrary to staff defined policy, so the nation may be expected to deny the states the right to make decisions on educational policy that are not in accord with the emerging national policy for ed.

  Graham Barden (Recently) Chairman, House Ed. & Labor Comm.

  Purpose of Fed. aid bill of ’57 was to centralize power over our school system here in Wash. where it is easier to apply concentrated pressure.

  HUMOR

  There are 3 kinds of lies: lies, d—m lies, & statistics.

  Those Congressmen who worried about being bugged by the FBI—you’d think they’d be glad someone was listening to them.

  Letter addressed to occupant—ever think of sending check back signed occupant.

  All for econ. as long as they can spend more money.

  Their idea of fighting crime is longer suspended sentences.

  Like saying Burton married E. Taylor for her money.

  When operating on a Demo. pol. even the keenest analytic surgeon cannot separate demagogic from solid tissue without killing his patient.

  Fireman boasted he’d caught 20 lb. salmon. Q: “Any witnesses?” A: “If there weren’t . . . would have weighed 40 lbs.”

  Simple diet—if it tastes good spit it out.

  Economist is a fellow who takes long steps to save his new $10 shoes & splits his $20 slacks.

  Some people try to be so broadminded they wind up just shallow.

  Every time the govt. shifts to the left the decimal point in taxes shifts to the right.

  Some tasks have to be put off a doz. times before they slip your mind.

  When all the cars in the city are laid end to end it’s a weekend.

  Ignorance can’t be bliss or a lot of people would be jumping up & down with joy.

  If you wrote 9 people today & each of them wrote to 9 diff. people tomorrow & this continued for just 10 days—you’d reach 3,486,784,401.

  Upper crust . . . lot . . . old crumbs held together by dough.

  To err is human—it takes a computer to really louse things up.

  Many foxes grow grey but few grow good.

  Worst wheel on the wagon makes the most noise.

  An empty bag cannot stand upright.

  Could say horse in 9 langs. but bought a cow to ride on.

  Tricks are the prac. of fools who haven’t the wit to be honest.

  He who scatters thorns should not go barefoot.

  Confidence—what you start out with before . . . understand . . . situation.

  Newest thing in women’s hairdos is men.

  Some people are so addicted to exaggeration they can’t tell the truth without lying.

  Husband: “In our 6 yrs. marriage we haven’t been able to agree on anything.” Wife: “It’s been 7 yrs., dear.”

  Inflation—changed . . . pumpernickel bread to pumperdime.

  There is a noble forgetfulness—that which does not remember injuries.

  Voltaire: “In general the art of govt. consists of taking as much money as poss. from one class of citizens to give to the other.”

  We are all aware that “moderation” is a good rule for health—exercise moderately, eat the same way—drink in moderation but moderation should be taken in moderation. For example—should a man be moderately faithful to wife? How about your banker—is he moderately honest? That school bus driver—moderately good driver? Somehow I hope the plane I take to L.A. is more than moderately safe. How about in the operating room—the man with the scalpel in his hand—does he have a moderately good record of success with this type of op.? Have you met your son’s fiancée—she insists she’s a moderately virtuous young woman.

  We all want our sons to have all the things we never had when we were their age—especially a report card with a lot of “A”s.

  Lady Driver: The thing I dislike about parking is the noisy crash.

  Latest from Moscow—someone just broke into the Kremlin and stole next year’s election results.

  Some people are so indecisive their favorite color is plaid.

  News Item: Rep. Mario Briggs’ used . . . Cong. Rec. for a glowing testimonial to his N.Y. colleague Frank Brasco. Heaping praise on Brasco that his fellow Dem. had decided to retire. He didn’t mention that Brasco will be sentenced to Fed. prison this month for bribery.

  Conscience is that still small voice that tells you when you are about to get caught.

  Fishing is something you should do yesterday when they were biting.

  Man at testimonial dinner: 47 years ago I walked into this town with my earthly possessions tied in a red bandana on a stick. This town has been good to me—I’m on the board of the bank, own 2 apt. buildings & an office building and have branch businesses in 39 cities.

  Little boy: Sir, what was in that bandana 47 years ago?

  Man: $300,000 cash.

  You know why it’s called horse sense—they don’t bet on people.

  Technology—what makes it take less time to cross the ocean & longer to drive to work.

  Old fellow: Yep I’m 94 and haven’t got an enemy in the world—last one petered out about a yr. ago.

  Ask an atheist who’s just had a great meal if he believes there’s a cook.

  If all the cans in the world were placed end to end some dope would pull out & try to pass them.

  A protest march is like a tantrum only better organized.

  The trouble with staying home from work is that you have to drink coffee on your own time.

  Beware of those who fall at your feet. They may be reaching for the corner of the rug.

  Some people want to check govt. spending & some people want to spend govt. checks.

  Today if someone offered us the world on a silver platter most of us would take the platter.

  Money may not buy friends but it will help you to stay in contact with your children.

  As long as there are final exams there will be prayer in schools.

  Flattery is what makes husbands of bachelors.

  New credit plan: “Try our easy payment plan, 100% down & nothing to pay.”

  Conscience is that still small voice that tells you what other people should do.

  Don’t mind going to work . . . that long wait til quitting time.

  Sometimes if you have a good idea tell it to someone else for about ¾ hour until he thinks it’s his. Then when he subsequently brings it up express doubt & finally reluctantly agree to sign it or try it on an experimental basis. There is nothing like skepticism to gain support for an idea.

  Seen a pacemaker with more compassion.

  Spks. with all the authority of an empty podium.

  Wife cheering up depressed husband: What do you mean nothing to live for—house isn’t pd. for, car isn’t pd. for, washing machine, TV. . .

  Nice thing about long range goals—you don’t get frustrated with short range failures.

  That dumb blonde in the office may turn out to be a smart brunette.