Never run into debt, not if you can find anything else to run into.
—Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw) (1818–85) American Humorist, Author, Lecturer
Always live within your income, even if you have to borrow money to do so.
—Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw) (1818–85) American Humorist, Author, Lecturer
Promises make debt, and debt makes promises.
—Dutch Proverb
Credit is a system whereby a person who cannot pay gets another person who cannot pay to guarantee that he can pay.
—Charles Dickens (1812–70) English Novelist
We at Chrysler borrow money the old-fashioned way. We pay it back.
—Lee Iacocca (1924–2019) American Businessperson
Youth is in danger until it learns to look upon debts as furies.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (1803–73) British Novelist, Poet, Politician
The nation is prosperous on the whole, but how much prosperity is there in a hole?
—Will Rogers (1879–1935) American Actor, Rancher, Humorist
Bankruptcy is a sacred state, a condition beyond conditions, as theologians might say, and attempts to investigate it are necessarily obscene, like spiritualism. One knows only that he has passed into it and lives beyond us, in a condition not ours.
—John Updike (1932–2009) American Novelist, Poet, Short-Story Writer
No blister draws sharper than interest on money.—It works day and night; in fair weather and foul.—It gnaws at a man’s substance with invisible teeth.—It binds industry with its film, as a fly is bound with a spider’s web.—Debt rolls a man over and over, binding him hand and foot, and letting him hang on the fatal mesh, till the long-legged interest devours him.—One had better make his bed of Canada thistles, than attempt to lie at ease upon interest.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
One day Donald Trump will discover that he is owned by Lutheran Brotherhood and must re negotiate his debt load with a committee of silent Norwegians who don’t understand why anyone would pay more than $120.00 for a suit.
—Garrison Keillor (b.1942) American Author, Humorist, Radio Personality
Debt is to a man what the serpent is to the bird; its eye fascinates, its breath poisons, its coil crushes sinew and bone, its jaw is the pitiless grave.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (1803–73) British Novelist, Poet, Politician
Man was lost if he went to a usurer, for the interest ran faster than a tiger upon him.
—Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American Novelist, Human Rights Activist
Speak not of my debts unless you mean to pay them.
—English Proverb
I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers to be feared…. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt…. We must make our choice between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude…. If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and our comforts, in our labors and in our amusements…. If we can prevent the Government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
The creditor hath a better memory than the debtor.
—James Howell (c.1593–1666) Anglo-Welsh Writer, Historian
Running into debt isn’t so bad. It’s running into creditors that hurts.
—Unknown
To John I owed great obligation; but John, unhappily, thought fit to publish it to all the nation: Sure John and I are more than quit.
—Matthew Prior (1664–1721) English Poet, Diplomat
Birds have bills too, and they keep on singing
—Unknown
Poverty is hard, but debt is horrible.—A man might as well have a smoky house and a scolding wife, which are said to be the two worst evils of our life.
—Charles Spurgeon (1834–92) English Baptist Preacher
Words pay no debts.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
Let us live is as small a circle as we will, we are either debtors or creditors before we have had time look around.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
There are but two ways of paying debt—increase of industry in raising income, increase of thrift in laying out.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
Small debts are like small gun shot; they are rattling around us on all sides and one can scarcely escape being wounded. Large debts are like canons, they produce a loud noise, but are of little danger.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on Paul’s support.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
God often pays debts without money.
—Irish Proverb
It is said that the world is in a state of bankruptcy, that the world owes the world more than the world can pay.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Better to go to bed hungry than to wake up in debt.
—Common Proverb
A man who owes a little can clear it off in a little time, and, if he is prudent, he will: whereas a man, who, by long negligence, owes a great deal, despairs of ever being able to pay, and therefore never looks into his accounts at all.
—Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) English Statesman, Man of Letters
Debt is the worst poverty.
—Thomas Fuller (1608–61) English Cleric, Historian
A small debt makes a man your debtor, a large one makes him your enemy.
—Seneca the Elder (Marcus Annaeus Seneca) (c.55 BCE–c.40 CE) Roman Rhetorician
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