Borrowing Quotes

I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men

When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes.

I could end the deficit in 5 minutes. You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election

I do not pretend to step out of my own sphere and to control the internal management of other departments, but it seems to me that as Secretary of the Treasury, I may ask, that, while peace continues, the aggregate of the expenditure of those departments be kept within bounds such as will preserve the equilibrium between the national revenue and expenditure without recurrence to loans.

The banks have discontinued themselves. We are now without any medium … necessity, as well as patriotism and confidence will make us all eager to receive Treasury notes if founded on specific taxes. Congress may now borrow of the public, and without interest, all the money they may want … by merely issuing their own promissory notes ….

The moon's an arrant thief, And her pale fire she snatches from the sun.

Lending has come back in retail; it has come back in working capital. It has also come back in other forms, like government contract being given out to companies.

If you lend money to any of my people that is poor by you, you shall not be a usurer to him, nor shall you lay upon him usury.

There are two sure ways to lose a friend, one is to borrow, the other to lend.

Money lending is a horrible profession. If we are to call it otherwise it is lawful plundering.

The trade of the petty usurer is hated with most reason: it makes a profit from currency itself, instead of making it from the process which currency was meant to serve. Their common characteristic is obviously their sordid avarice.

Our originality shows itself most strikingly not in what we wholly originate but in what we do with that which we borrow from others.

Most everything I've done I've copied from somebody else.

He that trades with Money he hath borrowed at 8 or 10 per Cent cannot hold Market with him that borrows his Money at 6 or 4.

When a thing has been said and well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it.

If you steal from one book you are condemned as a plagiarist, but if you steal from ten books you are considered a scholar, and if you steal from thirty or forty books, a distinguished scholar.

Borrowing for expansion is one thing; borrowing to make up for mismanagement and waste is quite another.

If the US government spends 40 percent of the nation's income, as it does through either borrowing or taxes, that income is not available for people to spend. The deficit is an indirect method of taxation. Of course, politicians prefer to borrow instead of tax because then someone down the road has to deal with the consequences.

Interest is the invention of Satan

Borrowed money, even when owing to a nation by another nation, should be repaid. They hired the money, didn't they? Let them pay it.

Never spend anything before thou have it; for borrowing is the canker and death of every man's estate.

God has permitted buying and selling and forbidden usury …. those who revert to usury are doomed to everlasting hellfire …

I think that this is the most significant financial crisis in the post-War period for the United States, and it has in fact a global reach.... I think it is extraordinarily important to understand that, as we have seen in many previous examples of different countries and different times, choking up of credit is like taking the lifeblood away from the economy.

When all things are considered, it will be found best for the Nation to leave the Borrowers and the Lender to make their own Bargains, according to the Circumstances they lie under

Raising the debt ceiling is not additional spending. It is simply saying, you, the United States of America, can continue to borrow the money you need to pay the bills you have already rung up.