|
Home life ceases to be free and beautiful as soon as it is founded on borrowing and debt.
HENRIK IBSEN, A Doll's House
A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing.
ALEXANDER HAMILTON, letter to Robert Morris, Apr. 30, 1781
We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.
THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Samuel Kerchevel, Jul. 12, 1816
Neither a borrower nor a lender be; for loan oft loses both itself and friend.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet
- By no means run in debt: take thine own measure,
- Who cannot live on twenty pound a year,
- Cannot on forty.
GEORGE HERBERT, The Church Porch
As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is, to use it as sparingly as possible; avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it; avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertions in time of peace to discharge the debts, which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burthen, which we ourselves ought to bear.
GEORGE WASHINGTON, Farewell Address, Sep. 17, 1796
Blessed are the young for they shall inherit the national debt.
HERBERT HOOVER, as quoted in Francis X. Cavanaugh's The Truth About the National Debt
Debt is beautiful only after it is repaid.
A debt is still unpaid, even if forgotten.
Pay every debt as if God wrote the bill.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON, fragment, May-Day and Other Pieces
|
