All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.

My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.

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.

In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.

To establish any mode to abolish war, however advantageous it might be to Nations, would be to take from such Government the most lucrative of its branches.

Government does not create wealth. The major role for the government is to create an environment where people take risks to expand the job rate in the United States.

Most of the energy of political work is devoted to correcting the effects of mismanagement of government.

The impersonal hand of government can never replace the helping hand of a neighbor.

A government of laws, and not of men.

Anyone who thinks that the vice-president can take a position independent of the president of his administration simply has no knowledge of politics or government. You are his choice in a political marriage, and he expects your absolute loyalty.