"But change would not mean rejection of the past. Like a tree growing strong through the seasons, rooted in the Earth and drawing life from the Sun, so, too, positive change must be rooted in traditional values -- in the land, in culture, in family and community -- and it must take its life from the eternal things, from the source of all life, which is faith. Such change will lead to new understandings, new opportunities, to a broader future in which the tradition is not supplanted but finds its full flowering. That is the future beckoning to your generation. At the same time, we should remember that reform that is not institutionalized will always be insecure. Such freedom will always be looking over its shoulder. A bird on a tether, no matter how long the rope, can always be pulled back. And that is why, in my conversation with General Secretary Gorbachev, I have spoken of how important it is to institutionalize change -- to put guarantees on reform. And we've been talking together about one sad reminder of a divided world: the Berlin Wall. It's time to remove the barriers that keep people apart."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Ronald Reagan, Remarks and a Question-and-Answer Session With the Students and Faculty at Moscow State University, 31 May 1988
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Perestroika
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Perestroika
39 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Perestroika →
Related Quotes
"Regardless of the reasons given for his removal, we are dealing with a rightist, reactionary, anti-constitutional cou…"
"Profound changes have taken place in social life, For the first time in history, the working man has become the maste…"
"The totalitarian system in the Soviet Union and in most of its satellites is breaking down, and our nations are looki…"
"I began my book about perestroika and the new thinking with the following words: "We want to be understood". After a …"
"The reform policies of the Gorbachev government were, in effect, its own attempt to create what had been termed, with…"
"Launched in 1985, perestroika has created the preconditions for a peaceful transition of the country into the mainstr…"
"For the first time since the Cold War began the U.S.S.R. had a ruler who did not seem sinister, boorish, unresponsive…"
"Gorbachev's impressionability also showed up in economics. He had been aware, from his travels outside the Soviet Uni…"
"Gorbachev was surprisingly receptive. He echoed some of Shultz's thinking in his 1987 book, Perestroika: "How can the…"
"The concept of the restructuring of the economic mechanism has now become clearer to us. In continuing to develop the…"