The government should not be guided by Temporary Excitement, but by Sober Second Thought.
Interpretation
Decisions made by the government should be based on careful consideration rather than on fleeting emotions.
Martin Van Buren's quote emphasizes the importance of rational and thoughtful decision-making in governance. It suggests that leaders should not be swayed by short-term enthusiasm or public sentiment but should take a step back to analyze situations critically for better long-term outcomes.
In practice
In a political debate, to argue for careful policy-making, one might cite this quote.
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.
No, Governor Romney, corporations are not people. People have hearts, they have kids, they get jobs, they get sick, they cry, they dance. They live, they love, and they die. And that matters. That matters because we don't run this country for corporations, we run it for people.
The task of the media in a democracy is not to ease the path of those who govern, but to make life difficult for them by constant vigilance as to how they exercise the power they only hold in trust from the people.
While all other sciences have advanced, that of government is at a standstill - little better understood, little better practiced now than three or four thousand years ago.
I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.
Voting rights is how we address the deepening divides in our country, by ensuring every eligible voter's voice is heard.
If you had to work in the environment of Washington, D.C., as I do, and watch those men who are so imprisoned and so confined by their eighteenth-century thought patterns, you would know that if anybody is going to be liberated, it's men who must be liberated in this country.
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