We have every right to dream heroic dreams.

For a time, we forgot the American dream isn't one of making government bigger, it's keeping faith with the mighty spirit of free people under God

We have every right to dream heroic dreams. Those who say that we're in a time when there are no heroes, they just don't know where to look. (January 20, 1981)

I have seen the rise and fall of Nazi tyranny, the subsequent cold war and the nuclear nightmare that for fifty years haunted the dreams of children everywhere. During that time my generation defeated totalitarianism. As a result, your world is poised for better tomorrows. What will you do on your journey?

Freedom is the right to question and change the established way of doing things. It is the continuing revolution of the marketplace. It is the understanding that allows us to recognize shortcomings and seek solutions. It is the right to put forth an idea, scoffed at by the experts, and watch it catch fire among the people. It is the right to follow your dream, or stick to your conscience even if you're the only one in a sea of doubters.

My dream is that you will travel the road ahead with liberty's lamp guiding your steps and opportunity's arm steadying your way.

Dreams became issues of East versus West. Hopes became political rhetoric. Progress became a search for power and domination. Somewhere the truth was lost that people don't make war, governments do.

America has always been greatest when we dared to be great. We can reach for greatness again. We can follow our dreams to distant stars, living and working in space for peaceful, economic, and scientific gain. Tonight, I am directing NASA to develop a permanently manned space station, and to do it within a decade.

Ending inflation means freeing all Americans from the terror of runaway living costs. ... We have every right to dream heroic dreams. Those who say that we are in a time when there are no heroes just don't know where to look. ... Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women.