The less government interferes with private pursuits, the better for general prosperity.
Interpretation
Minimal government interference in personal and business activities leads to greater overall prosperity.
This quote by Martin Van Buren suggests that when the government reduces its involvement in the activities of individuals and businesses, it creates a more favorable environment for prosperity and economic growth. It implies that freedom in private pursuits allows for innovation, productivity, and better resources allocation, leading to a thriving society.
In practice
In a discussion about economic policies, one might say, 'As Martin Van Buren stated, the less government interferes with private pursuits, the better for general prosperity.'
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.
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.
I think maybe the people in elected positions are more interested in preserving their jobs than in doing the best job possible.
You will find that you cannot do without politicians. They are a necessary evil in this day and time. You may not like getting money from one source and spending it for another. But the thing for the school people to do is that if the politicians are going to steal, make them steal for the schools.
When we're in the business of picking fights with our allies instead of working with them, that takes away from our strength in dealing with China.
All political power comes from the barrel of either guns, pussy, or opium pipes, and people seem to like it that way.
When you have armed militants, aided and abetted by a major country like Russia, able to use surface-to-air missiles to bring down a commercial airline, that is a form of terrorism.
Yet the basic fact remains: every regulation represents a restriction of liberty, every regulation has a cost. That is why, like marriage (in the Prayer Book's words), regulation should not "be enterprised, nor taken in hand, unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly"
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