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Shakespeare in Reagan's Public Remarks

For a modern president, Ronald Reagan included relatively long passages of Shakespeare in some of his speeches and public remarks, once delivering the speech from Julius Caesar that begins “There is a tide in the affairs of men” as a call to action at a conservative political banquet. He also made short references to Shakespeare fairly often (one favorite line was “The people are the city,” from Coriolanus).

Early in his presidency, he appeared at a Tennessee high school for a public forum and a teacher was asked to choose a Shakespeare passage for the president to deliver afterwards. She selected the famous speech by Macbeth that begins, “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow / Creeps in this petty pace from day to day.” True to his Hollywood studio training, President Reagan delivered the lines he had been given—but in typically optimistic fashion, he could not resist going on record to politely differ from Macbeth’s despair. “I hope none of you ever get that cynical or pessimistic about life,” he told the audience of students. The full transcript appears below.

From a Question-and-Answer Session With Students at Farragut High School in Farragut, Tennessee, June 14, 1983

Shirley Mynatt (teacher): We would be very pleased if we could get you to read some of these lines to us. I can find a place with my favorite passage—I don't know about theirs. But I wonder if I could get you to do that.

The President: Well, I was tipped off that you were going to ask me that and what your favorite passage was—

Mrs. Mynatt: You even know my favorite passage!

The President: —and so, I just have it on a piece of paper here in my pocket. [Laughter]

Mrs. Mynatt: Well, that's very good, because I just happen to have it marked in my book with a note card, too, so I could be sure to find the place.

The President: Well, I don't know whether I'm trying out for a part or not. [Laughter]

Mrs. Mynatt: You might get it.

The President: Well, yes, Macbeth and I had—I studied Shakespeare in high school. It was required. But it was well worthwhile. And, as a matter of fact, I once played Shakespeare, but that was in college. We did Taming of the Shrew, but did it in modern costume, and it was very successful.

But this is Macbeth's lines when the word has been brought to him of the death of Lady Macbeth—and, as you know, how the forces of evil had seized him because of his ambition, and then to the point that he was almost without feeling. And he said,

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

I hope that none of you ever get that pessimistic or that cynical about life. I think that humankind is very important, and their lives are not as futile as he would have us believe; but he'd done it unto himself.

Library of Congress