"One of the things the government can't do is run anything. The only things our government runs are the post office and the railroads, and both of them are bankrupt."

"I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it."

"Without God there could be no American form of government nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first the most basic expression of Americanism."

"I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it. (31 August 1959)"

"The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print money to do that. So there is zero probability of default."

"Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country."

"Too often in recent history liberal governments have been wrecked on rocks of loose fiscal policy"

"I am sometimes a fox and sometimes a lion. The whole secret of government lies in knowing when to be the one or the other."

"The government is us; we are the government, you and I."

I could not do otherwise without transcending the limits prescribed by the Constitution for the President and without feeling that I might in some degree disturb the security which religion nowadays enjoys in this country in its complete separation from the political concerns of the General Government.

The people are the government, administering it by their agents; they are the government, the sovereign power.

Our government is founded upon the intelligence of the people. I for one do not despair of the republic. I have great confidence in the virtue of the great majority of the people, and I cannot fear the result.

Money is power, and in that government which pays all the public officers of the states will all political power be substantially concentrated.

The great constitutional corrective in the hands of the people against usurpation of power, or corruption by their agents is the right of suffrage; and this when used with calmness and deliberation will prove strong enough.

Every diminution of the public burdens arising from taxation gives to individual enterprise increased power and furnishes to all the members of our happy confederacy new motives for patriotic affection and support.

I've got big shoes to fill. This is my chance to do something. I have to seize the moment.

Peace, above all things, is to be desired, but blood must sometimes be spilled to obtain it on equable and lasting terms.

It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their own selfish purposes.

All the rights secured to the citizens under the Constitution are worth nothing, and a mere bubble, except guaranteed to them by an independent and virtuous Judiciary.

The duty of government is to leave commerce to its own capital and credit as well as all other branches of business, protecting all in their legal pursuits, granting exclusive privileges to none.

The brave man inattentive to his duty, is worth little more to his country than the coward who deserts in the hour of danger.

If the Union is once severed, the line of separation will grow wider and wider, and the controversies which are now debated and settled in the halls of legislation will then be tried in fields of battle and determined by the sword.

The planter, the farmer, the mechanic, and the laborer... form the great body of the people of the United States, they are the bone and sinew of the country men who love liberty and desire nothing but equal rights and equal laws.

It was settled by the Constitution, the laws, and the whole practice of the government that the entire executive power is vested in the President of the United States.