Economics

"Wilt thou seal up the avenues of ill? Pay every debt as if God wrote the bill!"

"Poverty demoralizes. A man in debt is so far a slave; and Wall-street thinks it easy for a millionaire to be a man of his word, a man of honor, but, that, in failing circumstances, no man can be relied on to keep his integrity."

"You must pay at last your own debt. If you are wise, you will dread a prosperity which only loads you with more."

"Put God in your debt. Every stroke shall be repaid. The longer the payment is withholden, the better for you; for compound interest on compound interest is the rate and usage of this exchequer."

"Debt, grinding debt, whose iron face the widow, the orphan, and the sons of genius fear and hate; debt, which consumes so much time, which so cripples and disheartens a great spirit with cares that seem so base, is a preceptor whose lessons cannot be forgone, and is needed most by those who suffer from it most."

"Slight was the thing I bought, Small was the debt I thought, Poor was the loan at best— God! but the interest!"

"Debt is the prolific mother of folly and of crime."

"My other piece of advice, Copperfield", said Mr. Micawber, "you know. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery. The blossom is blighted, the leaf is withered, the god of day goes down upon the dreary scene, and—and, in short, you are for ever floored. As I am!"

"At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release. And this is the manner of the release: Every creditor that lendeth ought unto his neighbour shall release it; he shall not exact it of his neighbour, or of his brother; because it is called the LORD's release. Of a foreigner thou mayest exact it again: but that which is thine with thy brother thine hand shall release; Save when there shall be no poor among you; for the LORD shall greatly bless thee in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it: Only if thou carefully hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all these commandments which I command thee this day. For the LORD thy God blesseth thee, as he promised thee: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, but thou shalt not borrow; and thou shalt reign over many nations, but they shall not reign over thee. If there be among you a poor man of one of thy brethren within any of thy gates in thy land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not harden thine heart, nor shut thine hand from thy poor brother: But thou shalt open thine hand wide unto him, and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need, in that which he wanteth. Beware that there be not a thought in thy wicked heart, saying, The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand; and thine eye be evil against thy poor brother, and thou givest him nought; and he cry unto the LORD against thee, and it be sin unto thee. Thou shalt surely give him, and thine heart shall not be grieved when thou givest unto him: because that for this thing the LORD thy God shall bless thee in all thy works, and in all that thou puttest thine hand unto. For the poor shall never cease out of the land: therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land."

"Anticipated rents, and bills unpaid, Force many a shining youth into the shade, Not to redeem his time, but his estate, And play the fool, but at the cheaper rate."

"I owe you one."

"There are two things that bestow consequence; great possession, or great debts."

"It shows nobility to be willing to increase your debt to a man to whom you already owe much."

"Chi vuole che la quaresima gli paia corta, si faccia debito per pagare a Pasqua."

"Even though we issue lots of credit cards and everything, we’d say, probably, if I had one piece of advice to give to young people, you know, across the board, it would be just to don’t get in debt."

"There is, of course, a gold mine or a buried treasure on every mortgaged homestead. Whether the farmer ever digs for it or not, it is there, haunting his daydreams when the burden of debt is most unbearable."

":::::::Barlow S. Vode"

":And finds at last he might as well have paid it."

":Grieves at his debt and studies to evade it,"

":Yet feels the narrow limits that impound him,"

":So the poor debtor, seeing naught around him,"

":Nor ever sees the prison that enfolds him;"

":Pressing his nose against the glass that holds him,"

":Swims round and round his tank to find an outlet,"

":As, pent in an aquarium, the troutlet"

"DEBT, n. An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slave-driver."

"I hold every man a debtor to his profession."

"Money is created when banks lend it into existence. When a bank provides you with a $100,000 mortgage, it creates only the principal, which you spend and which then circulates in the economy. The bank expects you to pay back $200,000 over the next 20 years, but it doesn't create the second $100,000 - the interest. Instead, the bank sends you out into the tough world to battle against everybody else to bring back the second $100,000."

"The human species, according to the best theory I can form of it, is composed of two distinct races, the men who borrow, and the men who lend."

"One of the greatest disservices you can do a man is to lend him money that he can't pay back."

"Be assured that it gives much more pain to the mind to be in debt, than to do without any article whatever which we may seem to want."

"You must, to get through life well, practice industry with economy, never create a debt for anything that is not absolutely necessary, and if you make a promise to pay money at a day certain, be sure to comply with it. If you do not, you lay yourself liable to have your feelings injured and your reputation destroyed with the just imputation of violating your word."

"You give me back. Phœbus, my bond for four hundred thousand sesterces; lend me rather a hundred thousand more. Seek some one else to whom you may vaunt your empty present: what I cannot pay you, Phœbus, is my own."

"He who prefers to give Linus the half of what he wishes to borrow, rather than to lend him the whole, prefers to lose only the half."

"Great collections of books are subject to certain accidents besides the damp, the worms, and the rats; one not less common is that of the borrowers, not to say a word of the purloiners."

"He that would have a short Lent, let him borrow money to be repaid at Easter."

"I borrow to pay my honest debts and not to squander foolishly. What's more, I confine my borrowing to those who can well afford it. I don't go around sponging on widows and orphans unless they have plenty."

"Borrowing has a bad name, but you would be surprised how it helps in a pinch."

"Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away."

"Who goeth a borrowing Goeth a sorrowing. Few lend (but fools) Their working tools."

"What question can be here? Your own true heart Must needs advise you of the only part: That may be claim'd again which was but lent, And should be yielded with no discontent, Nor surely can we find herein a wrong, That it was left us to enjoy it long."

"Neither a borrower nor a lender be: For loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry."

"Croyez que chose divine est prester; debvoir est vertu heroïcque."

"The borrower is servant to the lender."

"I have granted you much that you asked: and yet you never cease to ask of me. He who refuses nothing, Atticilla, will soon have nothing to refuse."

"Mainstream sociological theory sees differences in jobs, skills, and education as the primary causes of inequality, and substantial wealth transfers embarrass this theory. The classical sociologist Emil Durkheim, for example, predicted that family inheritances would decline over time in favor of giving to charitable and nonprofit organizations, but studies examining actual bequests invalidate this predication. ... In 1989 charitable bequests constituted less than 10 percent of proceeds of estates valued at over $600,000 in the United States."

"He lives to build, not boast, a generous race; No tenth transmitter of a foolish face."

"Whenever the rate of return on capital is significantly and durably higher than the growth rate of the economy, it is all but inevitable that inheritance (of fortunes accumulated in the past) predominates over saving (wealth accumulated in the present). ... The inequality r > g in one sense implies that the past tends to devour the future: wealth originating in the past automatically grows more rapidly, even without labor, than wealth stemming from work, which can be saved. Almost inevitably, this tends to give lasting disproportionate importance to inequalities created in the past, and therefore to inheritance."

"The privilege of executors is too great already. They ought to be properly informed when they bring actions."

"What we have inherited from our fathers and mothers is not all that 'walks in us.' There are all sorts of dead ideas and lifeless old beliefs. They have no tangibility, but they haunt us all the same and we can not get rid of them. Whenever I take up a newspaper I seem to see Ghosts gliding between the lines. Ghosts must be all over the country, as thick as the sands of the sea."