Martin Van Buren

To avoid the necessity of a permanent debt and its inevitable consequences, I have advocated and endeavored to carry into effect the policy of confining the appropriations for the public service to such objects only as are clearly with the constitutional authority of the Federal Government.

In time of peace there can, at all events, be no justification for the creation of a permanent debt by the Federal Government. Its limited range of constitutional duties may certainly under such circumstances be performed without such a resort.

It is easier to do a job right than to explain why you didn't.

The less government interferes with private pursuits, the better for general prosperity.

Those who have wrought great changes in the world never succeeded by gaining over chiefs; but always by exciting the multitude. The first is the resource of intrigue and produces only secondary results, the second is the resort of genius and transforms the universe.

I tread in the footsteps of illustrious men, whose superiors it is our happiness to believe are not found on the executive calendar of any country.

The government should not be guided by Temporary Excitement, but by Sober Second Thought.