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.
The preeminent obstacle to peace is Israel's colonization of Palestine.
It is said that every people has the Government it deserves. It is more to the point that every Government has the electorate it deserves; for the orator of the front bench can edify or debauch an ignorant electorate at will.
The sanctions will not kill us. It's apartheid that's killing us.
If taxes are laid upon us in any shape without our having a legal representation where they are laid, are we not reduced from the character of free subjects to the miserable state of tributary slaves? We claim British rights not by charter only! We are born to them.
Power-worship blurs political judgment because it leads, almost unavoidably, to the belief that present trends will continue. Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible.
There are many terrorist states in the world, but the United States is unusual in that it is officially committed to international terrorism.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.