Debt Quotes

“You don't pay back your parents. You can't. The debt you owe them gets collected by your children, who hand it down in turn. It's a sort of entailment. Or if you don't have children of the body, it's left as a debt to your common humanity. Or to your God, if you possess or are possessed by one.

The family economy evades calculation in the gross planetary product. It's the only deal I know where, when you give more than you get, you aren't bankrupted - but rather, vastly enriched.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign

“Karma has been a pop culture term for ages. But really, what the heck is it?

Karma is not an inviolate engine of cosmic punishment. Rather, it is a neutral sequence of acts, results, and consequences.

Receiving misfortune does not necessarily indicate that one has committed evil. But it is a sufficient indicator of something else.

And that something else can be anything, as long as it is a logical consequence of what has come before.

Consider: if you fall into a well, you are not a bad person who deserves to suffer—you are merely someone who took a wrong step. Or someone who had one drink too many. Or got a head rush due to poor circulation. Or forgot to wear your glasses. Or—

The reasons are plentiful, and all plausible. But the chain of cause and effect goes way, way back into the deepest hoariest recesses of your personal past.

So never rule out retribution. But never expect it.”
― Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

“Love is for children. I owe him a debt.”
― Joss Whedon

“...If you look at mainstream economics there are three things you will not find in a mainstream economic model - Banks, Debt, and Money.

How anybody can think they can analyze capital while leaving out Banks, Debt, and Money is a bit to me like an ornithologist trying to work out how a bird flies whilst ignoring that the bird has wings...”
― Steve Keen

“No pecuniary consideration is more urgent, than the regular redemption and discharge of the public debt: on none can delay be more injurious, or an economy of time more valuable.

~Message to the House of Representatives, 3 December 1793”
― George Washington

“Everything we get, outside of the free gifts of nature, must in some way be paid for. The world is full of so- called economists who in turn are full of schemes for getting something for nothing. They tell us that the government can spend and spend without taxing at all; that it can continue to pile up debt without ever paying it off, because "we owe it to ourselves.”
― Henry Hazlitt, Economics in One Lesson

“Money is sacred as everyone knows... So then must be the hunger for it and the means we use to obtain it. Once a man is in debt he becomes a flesh and blood form of money, a walking investment. You can do what you like with him, you can work him to death or you can sell him. This cannot be called cruelty or greed because we are seeking only to recover our investment and that is a sacred duty.”
― Barry Unsworth, Sacred Hunger

“She says, "Do you have any rubbers?" I say, I thought she was barren. "Sure, I'm sterile," she says, "but I've had unprotected sex with a million guys. I could have some terrible fatal disease." I say that would only be a problem if I wanted to live a lot longer. Fertility says, " That's how I feel about my giant credit card debt." So we have sex. If you could call it that.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Survivor

“I had a wholesome dread of the consequences of running in debt.”
― Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom

“I spend my life constantly calling in ‘imaginary’ debts that aren’t owed to me in order to avoid the ‘real’ debts that I owe to others, and so everybody ends up bankrupt.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“...freedom is of more account than the height of a roof beam. I ought to know; mine cost me eighteen years' slavery. The man who lives on his own land is an independent man. He is his own master. If I can keep my sheep alive through winter and can pay what has been stipulated from year to year - then I pay what has been stipulated; and I have kept my sheep alive. No, it is freedom that we are all after, Titla. He who pays his way is a king. He who keeps his sheep alive through the winter lives in a palace.”
― Halldór Laxness

“When I visited George Bernard Shaw, in 1948, at his home in Aylot, a suburb of London, he was extremely anxious for me to tell him all that I knew about Ingersoll. During the course of the conversation, he told me that Ingersoll had made a tremendous impression upon him, and had exercised an influence upon him probably greater than that of any other man. He seemed particularly anxious to impress me with the importance of Ingersoll's influence upon his intellectual endeavors and accomplishments.

In view of this admission, what percentage of the greatness of Shaw belongs to Ingersoll? If Ingersoll's influence upon so great an intellect as George Bernard Shaw was that extensive, what must have been his influence upon others?

What seed of wisdom did he plant into the minds of others, and what accomplishments of theirs should be attributed to him? The world will never know.

What about the countless thousands from whom he lifted the clouds of darkness and fear, and who were emancipated from the demoralizing dogmas and creeds of ignorance and superstition?

What will be Ingersoll's influence upon the minds of future generations, who will come under the spell of his magic words, and who will be guided into the channels of human betterment by the unparalleled example of his courageous life?

The debt the world owes Robert G. Ingersoll can never be paid.”
― Joseph Lewis, Ingersoll the Magnificent

“Debt is a four letter word and means a four word sentence - Be Prepared for Trouble.”
― Lucas Remmerswaal, 13 Habits.com The tale of Tortoise Buffett and Trader Hare: Inspired by Warren Buffett

“And don't tell me debt is not a big deal. Debt will cut off your legs and laugh at you as you grovel in the dirt begging for mercy. If you don't need it, don't get it. If you can't afford it, don't get it. If you're already in debt, get out quickly. If you think you'll never get out, you're right, you won't.”
― Osayi Osar-Emokpae, Impossible Is Stupid

“Jimmy put in a word and told them that if I made it, I wouldn't be able to live with myself without paying them back. That I'd sooner die than owe anyone money for helping me.

Apparently Jimmy knew more about me at that point than I knew about myself.”
― Craig Ferguson, American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot

“Tally sticks were quite explicitly IOUs: both parties to a transaction would take a hazelwood twig, notch it to indicate the amount owed, and then split it in half. The creditor would keep one half, called "the stock" (hence the origin of the term "stock holder") and the debtor kept the other, called "the stub" (hence the origin of the term "ticket stub.)”
― David Graeber, Debt: The First 5,000 Years

“The frost which kills the harvest of a year, saves the harvests of a century, by destroying the weevil or the locust. Wars, fires, plagues, break up immovable routine, clear the ground of rotten races and dens of distemper, and open a fair field to new men. There is a tendency in things to right themselves, and the war or revolution or bankruptcy that shatters a rotten system, allows things to take a new and natural order. The sharpest evils are bent into that periodicity which makes the errors of planets, and the fevers and distempers of men, self-limiting. Nature is upheld by antagonism. Passions, resistance, danger, are educators. We acquire the strength we have overcome. Without war, no soldier; without enemies, no hero.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Conduct of Life: By Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Forcing new loans upon the bankrupt on condition that they shrink their income is nothing short of cruel and unusual punishment. Greece was never bailed out. With their ‘rescue’ loan and their troika of bailiffs enthusiastically slashing incomes, the EU and IMF effectively condemned Greece to a modern version of the Dickensian debtors’ prison and then threw away the key.

Debtors’ prisons were ultimately abandoned because, despite their cruelty, they neither deterred the accumulation of new bad debts nor helped creditors get their money back. For capitalism to advance in the nineteenth century, the absurd notion that all debts are sacred had to be ditched and replaced with the notion of limited liability. After all, if all debts are guaranteed, why should lenders lend responsibly? And why should some debts carry a higher interest rate than other debts, reflecting the higher risk of going bad? Bankruptcy and debt write-downs became for capitalism what hell had always been for Christian dogma – unpleasant yet essential – but curiously bankruptcy-denial was revived in the twenty-first century to deal with the Greek state’s insolvency. Why? Did the EU and the IMF not realize what they were doing?

They knew exactly what they were doing. Despite their meticulous propaganda, in which they insisted that they were trying to save Greece, to grant the Greek people a second chance, to help reform Greece’s chronically crooked state and so on, the world’s most powerful institutions and governments were under no illusions. […]

Banks restructure the debt of stressed corporations every day, not out of philanthropy but out of enlightened self-interest. But the problem was that, now that we had accepted the EU–IMF bailout, we were no longer dealing with banks but with politicians who had lied to their parliaments to convince them to relieve the banks of Greece’s debt and take it on themselves. A debt restructuring would require them to go back to their parliaments and confess their earlier sin, something they would never do voluntarily, fearful of the repercussions. The only alternative was to continue the pretence by giving the Greek government another wad of money with which to pretend to meet its debt repayments to the EU and the IMF: a second bailout.”
― Yanis Varoufakis, Adults in the Room: My Battle with Europe's Deep Establishment

“His mind filled with visions of a decadent kleptocracy in rapid decline, abetted by both political parties. America's masses, fed on processed poison bought with a food stamp swipe card. Low-skill workers, structurally unable to ever contribute again and too dumb to know their old jobs weren't coming back. The banks in Gotham leaching the last drops of wealth out of the country. Corporations unrestrained by any notion of national interest. The system of property law in shambles. The world drowning in debt.”
― George Packer, The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America

“These days, what is a university but a collection of sports teams that share a mascot and fan base of students who mostly go into debt to study for careers already made obsolete by Artificial Intelligence?”
― Jarod Kintz, Whenever you're here, I'm there for you

“Home life ceases to be free and beautiful as soon as it is founded on borrowing and debt. (A Doll's House, act 1)”
― Henrik Ibsen, Plays 1: A Doll's House/Emperor and Galilean/John Gabriel Borkman/When We Dead Awaken

“You can earn zero dollars for FREE. You don't need to go into debt and go to college to not get a job. Being unemployed is something that doesn't require a degree, and that's important to remember now that getting a degree no longer means getting a job.”
― Jarod Kintz, Whenever you're here, I'm there for you

“College is a scam. Why go into debt to get no job when you could be unemployed for FREE?”
― Jarod Kintz, Whenever you're here, I'm there for you

“Loss is not known at once. It is a debt that accumulates.”
― Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves

“Taxes, politics, and working for money no longer make any sense when we realize that it would take millions of years to pay back global debt.”
― Daniella Liberati, Beyond Money: Regaining Sovereignty, Rediscovering Humanity

“Some debts get paid in blood. Whose is an open question.”
― Lee Driftwood, When She Walked In

“Debt settlement is not failure—it’s a decision to face reality, regain control, and choose peace over pressure.”
― Timi Nadela, Drowning in Debt? Start with a Plan: Why Debt Settlement Might Be Your Lifeline: A Step-by-Step Guide to Reducing Debt, Negotiating Bills, and Regaining ... Your Path to Financial Freedom Book 1)

“There will be no friendship until all debt is settled.”
― Charmaine J Forde

“He’s going to walk away with it,’ he said. ‘He’s just throwing words around. The Trunk’s too big to fail. Too many investors. He’ll get more money, keep the system going just this side of disaster, then let it collapse. Buy it up then via another company, maybe, at a knock-down price.’

‘I’d suspect him of anything,’ said Miss Dearheart. ‘But you sound very certain.’

‘That’s what I’d do,’ said Moist, ‘er . . . if I was that kind of person. It’s the oldest trick in the book. You get the punt— you get others so deeply involved that they don’t dare fold.

It’s the dream, you see? They think if they stay in it’ll all work out. They daren’t think it’s all a dream.

You use big words to tell them it’s going to be jam tomorrow and they hope. But they’ll never win. Part of them knows that, but the rest of them never listens to it. The house always wins.’

‘Why do people like Gilt get away with it?’

‘I just told you. It’s because people hope. They’ll believe that someone will sell them a real diamond for a dollar. Sorry.”
― Terry Pratchett

“What do you think, Peeta?" I finally ask him.

"I think... you still have no idea. The effect you can have." He slides his cuffs up the support and pushes himself to a sitting position. "None of the people we lost were idiots. They knew what they were doing. They followed you because they believed you really could kill Snow."

I don't know why his voice reaches me when no one else's can. But if he's right, and I think he is, I owe the others a debt that can only be repaid one way.”
― Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay