Did Ronald Reagan say "Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican"?

Q: Did Ronald Reagan say "Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican"?

No. The rule is Gaylord Parkinson's, not Reagan's. As California's Republican state chairman, Parkinson laid down the "Eleventh Commandment" on 25 September 1965 to stop the 1966 gubernatorial primary from tearing his party apart. Reagan did write this exact wording — in An American Life (1990), p. 150 — but he wrote it expressly to credit Parkinson, adding that it was "a rule I followed during that campaign and have ever since."

Who really said it

Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican

Not Reagan's line — Gaylord Parkinson coined it Gaylord Parkinson California Republican Party state chairman · issued the “Eleventh Commandment” on 25 September 1965

Disputed In copyright

The rule is Gaylord Parkinson’s, not Reagan’s. As California’s Republican state chairman, Parkinson laid down the “Eleventh Commandment” on 25 September 1965 to stop the 1966 gubernatorial primary from tearing his party apart. Reagan did write this exact wording — in An American Life (1990), p. 150 — but he wrote it expressly to credit Parkinson, adding that it was “a rule I followed during that campaign and have ever since.”

Last verified 14 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican” the "Eleventh Commandment," coined by California Republican state chairman Gaylord Parkinson on 25 September 1965. This wording as set down by Ronald Reagan, who credited Parkinson for it, in An American Life (1990), p. 150.

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Ronald Reagan. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by The estate of Ronald Reagan and Simon & Schuster (for An American Life)). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

Evoking the world of Gaylord Parkinson — issued the GOP's "Eleventh Commandment," 25 September 1965. Theme: "Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Provenance

The source

Rule issued: 25 September 1965, by California Republican state chairman Gaylord Parkinson
Earliest press wording: “Thou shalt not speak ill of any Republican” — Los Angeles Times, 27 September 1965
Famous wording set down in: An American Life
Reagan on the record: “Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican” — remarks, New York City, 17 June 1982

The greatest thing that’s happened for the Republican Party is, when the chips are down and the decisions are made as to who the candidates will be, then the 11th commandment prevails and everybody goes to work, and that is: Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican. Remarks in New York City, 17 June 1982

This is Reagan’s own on-the-record version, from his presidential remarks — and note that it reads “another Republican.” The wording the internet quotes, “any fellow Republican,” is the form Reagan set down in his 1990 memoir An American Life, where he presents it not as his own coinage but as Parkinson’s.

Presidential remarks, 17 June 1982

Read the full remarks at the Reagan Library

Barry Popik’s dated citation trail for the Eleventh Commandment

How the commandment travelled

25 September 1965 — Parkinson issues the rule. The next day’s Waterloo Daily Courier reports him warning that if any California Republican “deliberately speaks out against the party or against a fellow Republican that activity will endanger his very position of leadership”; by 27 September the Los Angeles Times has compressed it into commandment form — “Thou shalt not speak ill of any Republican” ↗. Note what the compressed form drops: the word fellow.
1966 — Reagan makes it his. Under personal attack from George Christopher in the gubernatorial primary, Reagan adopts the rule; he first invokes it that year and keeps invoking it for the rest of his career ↗. Parkinson had pitched it as party common ground — but Reagan was the candidate it protected.
17 June 1982 — the president restates it. Speaking to New York Republican convention delegates, Reagan says “Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican” ↗. Wikiquote carries this in its sourced section and flags it as a restatement of Parkinson’s commandment ↗ — not as Reagan’s invention.
1990 — the famous wording is fixed. In An American Life, Reagan writes that the attacks got so heavy that “the state Republican chairman, Gaylord Parkinson, postulated what he called the Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican. It’s a rule I followed during that campaign and have ever since” — cited to page 150 ↗. The sentence everyone attributes to Reagan is Reagan handing the credit away.

In copyright

The exact wording quoted here — “any fellow Republican” — is documented in Ronald Reagan’s An American Life, first published by Simon & Schuster in 1990, so that text is in copyright in the United States. The 1982 presidential remarks excerpted above are a different matter: as an official act of a sitting president they appear in the Public Papers of the Presidents, a United States Government work, and carry no such restriction — but they use the variant “another Republican,” not the wording people quote.

Fact-check

What people get wrong

This is an unusually clean case, because the star witness against the popular attribution is Ronald Reagan. He wrote the sentence — and in the same breath told you whose sentence it was.

Ronald Reagan Popularizer, not author

The rule was issued by California Republican state chairman Gaylord Parkinson on 25 September 1965 and was in the papers within two days, months before Reagan ever used it. Reagan credits Parkinson by name in his own memoir, and standard reference accounts describe Reagan as popularizing a commandment Parkinson created ↗. Calling it “Reagan’s Eleventh Commandment” is shorthand, not history.

The compressed “any fellow Republican” form Reagan's phrasing

The earliest commandment-form citations Barry Popik collects, from the Los Angeles Times of 27 September and 5 October 1965, both read “Thou shalt not speak ill of any Republican” ↗ — no fellow. The word does appear in Parkinson’s longer statement as reported on 26 September, so it is his vocabulary; but the eight-word version that circulates today is the one Reagan wrote down in 1990.

“Reagan always said it this way”

He didn’t. Speaking as president on 17 June 1982 he said “Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican” ↗. The line was a rule he kept, not a formula he recited verbatim.

A real rule, really invoked by Reagan for twenty-five years — but coined by Gaylord Parkinson in September 1965, and preserved in its famous wording only because Reagan quoted him on page 150 of An American Life ↗.

Context

Why it mattered

The Eleventh Commandment was not a piece of civility philosophy. It was a tourniquet. In 1964 the Republican Party had torn its own nominee apart in public — Nelson Rockefeller and the eastern establishment branding Barry Goldwater an extremist — and then watched him lose in a landslide. Gaylord Parkinson’s job in 1965 was to make sure California didn’t stage the sequel.

The immediate problem was that San Francisco mayor George Christopher and the party’s liberals were going hard at a first-time candidate named Ronald Reagan. Parkinson framed his rule as neutral common ground, and the liberals eventually signed on to it — but the practical effect was to take the sharpest weapon out of the hands of the man running against Reagan. Reagan won the primary, beat Governor Pat Brown, and spent the next twenty-five years quoting the rule that had helped protect him.

It was never a rule about manners. It was a rule about not losing.

Why the credit drifted to Reagan

Attributional drift almost always runs uphill toward the famous name, and Parkinson — a state party chairman remembered for one sentence — was never going to hold the credit against a president. But this case has a specific mechanism on top of the usual gravity: the single most quotable statement of the rule is Reagan’s. His 1990 memoir is where the eight-word version lives.

So the sentence people copy really was typed by Ronald Reagan. Strip the surrounding clause — “the state Republican chairman, Gaylord Parkinson, postulated what he called the Eleventh Commandment” — and what’s left looks exactly like a Reagan aphorism. The attribution error is built from the quotation marks being dropped.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Character Power

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Eleventh Commandment: the newspaper citation trailbarrypopik.com

Barry Popik's dated primary-source work: Parkinson's 25 September 1965 declaration and the earliest press wordings, including the Los Angeles Times of 27 September 1965.

Remarks at a Reception for State Republican Convention Delegates (17 June 1982)reaganlibrary.gov

The official text of Reagan invoking the 11th commandment as president — in the variant wording 'another Republican'.

Ronald Reagan — Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Carries the 1982 line in its sourced section and notes it is a restatement of Parkinson's Eleventh Commandment, which Reagan first used in 1966.

1966 California gubernatorial electionen.wikipedia.org

Covers the Eleventh Commandment's creation by Parkinson and quotes Reagan's An American Life passage, cited to page 150.

Eleventh Commandmentpoliticaldictionary.com

Reference entry on the phrase's 1960s coinage by Parkinson, his fuller original statement, and Reagan's career-long use of it.

The man Reagan was quoting

Who actually wrote the commandment

Gaylord Parkinson

California Republican Party state chairman · issued the GOP’s “Eleventh Commandment,” 25 September 1965

Gaylord Parkinson chaired the California Republican Party in the mid-1960s, when the party was still bleeding from the 1964 Goldwater debacle — a race in which East Coast Republicans including Nelson Rockefeller had savaged their own nominee as an extremist. With San Francisco mayor George Christopher and California’s liberal Republicans attacking Ronald Reagan personally in the 1966 gubernatorial primary, Parkinson issued a rule designed to make intra-party knife-fighting a career risk. He pitched it as common ground rather than a Reagan shield, and the party’s liberals eventually adopted it too — but its most famous beneficiary won the primary, beat Governor Pat Brown, and carried the commandment with him for the next quarter-century.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source

Ronald Reagan, An American Life (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990), 150. The rule was issued by California Republican state chairman Gaylord Parkinson on 25 September 1965; earliest documented commandment-form wording in the Los Angeles Times, 27 September 1965, per Barry Popik's citation trail. Reagan restated it as president in 'Remarks in New York City at a Reception for Delegates to the State Republican Convention,' 17 June 1982.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican’?” Last verified 14 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/thou-shalt-not-speak-ill-of-any-fellow-republican