Inspirational debt quotes will challenge the way you think, and make your life worth living.
Powerful Collection of Most Famous Debt Quotes
Before borrowing money from a friend, decide which you need most. – American Proverb
What can be added to the happiness of a man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience? – Adam Smith
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. – Frederick Douglass
The safest way to double your money is to fold it over and put it in your pocket. – Kin Hubbard
Debts are nowadays like children begot with pleasure, but brought forth in pain. – Moliere
Debt is such a powerful tool, it is such a useful tool, it’s much better than colonialism ever was because you can keep control without having an army, without having a whole administration. – Susan George
Some debts are fun when you are acquiring them, but none are fun when you set about retiring them. – Ogden Nash
A big part of financial freedom is having your heart and mind free from worry about the what-ifs of life. – Suze Orman
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. – Winston Churchill
Rather go to bed supperless, than rise in debt. – Benjamin Franklin
He who promises runs in debt. – The Talmud
Debt, we’ve learned, is the match that lights the fire of every crisis. Every crisis has its own set of villains – pick your favorite: bankers, regulators, central bankers, politicians, overzealous consumers, credit rating agencies – but all require one similar ingredient to create a true crisis: too much leverage. – Andrew Ross Sorkin
Budgeting has only one rule: Do not go over budget. – Leslie Tayne
I am determined to be cheerful and happy in whatever situation I may find myself. For I have learned that the greater part of our misery or unhappiness is determined not by our circumstance but by our disposition. – Martha Washington
When you know the impact of little expenses, you will realize that there is nothing little in this world. – Manoj Arora
One can pay back the loan of gold, but one lies forever in debt to those who are kind. – Malcolm Forbes
Interest works night and day; in fair weather and in foul. It gnaws at a man’s substance with invisible teeth. – Henry Ward Beecher
Debt is great source of inner unhappiness. – Debasish Mridha
A mortgage casts a shadow on the sunniest field. – Robert G. Ingersoll
Debts and lies are generally mixed together. – Francois Rabelais
If you think nobody cares if you’re alive, try missing a couple of car payments. – Earl Wilson
If you owe the bank $100 that’s your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that’s the bank’s problem. – J.P. Getty
You don’t have to be a miser, just be wiser with your money. – Dorethia Conner Kelly
To succeed, you need to find something to hold on to, something to motivate you, something to inspire you. – Tony Dorsett
If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading. – Lao Tzu
Financial peace isn’t the acquisition of stuff. It’s learning to live on less than you make, so you can give money back and have money to invest. – Dave Ramsey
Debts are like children – begot with pleasure, but brought forth in pain. – Moliere
It is the debtor that is ruined by hard times. – Rutherford B. Hayes
The impulse dances inside the debt. – Jareb Teague
Debt can turn a free, happy person into a bitter human being. – Michael Mihalik
No man’s credit is as good as his money. – John Dewey
It is only through labour and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage; that we move on to better things. – Theodore Roosevelt
Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. – Barack Obama
Debt on anything that depreciates is disastrous. – Orrin Woodward
Debts are like children: the smaller they are the more noise they make. – Spanish Proverb
Never spend your money before you have it. – Thomas Jefferson
Rich people plan for four generations. Poor people plan for Saturday night. – Gloria Steinem
Before you spend, earn. Before you invest, investigate. … Before you retire, save. – William A. Ward
The man who never has money enough to pay his debts has too much of something else. – James Lendall Basford
A promise made is a debt unpaid. – Robert W. Service
Debt . . . . that peculiar nexus where money, narrative or story, and religious belief intersect, often with explosive force. – Margaret Atwood
Debt is like any other trap, easy enough to get into, but hard enough to get out of. – Josh Billings
The debt of gratitude we owe our mother and father goes forward, not backward. What we owe our parents is the bill presented to us by our children. – Nancy Friday
It is poor judgment to countersign anothers note, to become responsible for his debts. – The Bible
Here is an equation worth remembering: Five dollars earned minus seven dollars spent equals an unhappy life.? – Jon Morrison
Make sure that you haven’t lost the things that money can’t buy. – George Lorimer
You cannot spend your way out of recession or borrow your way out of debt. – Daniel Hannan
Don’t tell me where your priorities are. Show me where you spend your money, and I’ll tell you what they are. – James W. Frick
Debt is the secret foe of thrift, as vice and idleness are its open enemies. – James H. Aughey
The only man who sticks closer to you in adversity than a friend is a creditor. – Unknown
Debt is a mistake between lender and borrower, and both should suffer. – Nassim Nicholas Taleb
The only way you will ever permanently take control of your financial life is to dig deep and fix the root problem. – Suze Orman
Only debt is forever. – Charles Stross
Debt is an ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slavedriver. – Ambrose Bierce
A small debt produces a debtor; a large one, an enemy. – Publilius Syrus
Neither a borrower nor a lender be; for loan doth oft lose both itself and friend. – William Shakespeare
Empty pockets never held anyone back. Only empty heads and empty hearts can do that. – Norman Vincent Peale
Promises make debt, and debt makes promises. – Dutch Proverb
A man in debt is so far a slave. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Debt is the worst poverty. – Thomas Fuller
A Debt Problem Is, At Its Core, a Budgeting Problem. – Natalie Pace
We can pay our debts to the past by putting the future in debt to ourselves. – John Buchan
A hundred wagon loads of thoughts will not pay a single ounce of debt. – Italian Proverb
When you get in debt you become a slave. – Andrew Jackson
Tis against some men’s principle to pay interest, and seems against others interest to pay the principle. – Benjamin Franklin
This would be a much better world if more married couples were as deeply in love as they are in debt. – Earl Wilson
Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt. – Herbert Hoover
Debt is normal. Be weird. – Dave Ramsey
He that dies pays all debts. – William Shakespeare
When a man is in love or in debt, someone else has the advantage. – Bill Balance
Debt, n. An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slavedriver. – Ambrose Bierce
No man’s credit is as good as his money. – E.W. Howe
There are three kinds of people: the haves, the have-nots, and the have-not-paid-for-what-they-haves. – Earl Wilson
Debt certainly isn’t always a bad thing. A mortgage can help you afford a home. Student loans can be a necessity in getting a good job. Both are investments worth making, and both come with fairly low interest rates. – Jean Chatzky
There are some debts that can’t be paid with money. – Steven J. Carroll
Forgetfulness is a gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscience. – Ambrose Bierce
Some people use one-half their ingenuity to get into debt, and the other half to avoid paying it. – George Prentice
A man who pays his bills on time is soon forgotten. – Oscar Wilde
Remember this: debt is a form of bondage. It is a financial termite. – Joseph P. Wirthlin
A habit of debt is very injurious to the memory. – Austin Malley
The debt we owe to the play of imagination is incalculable. – Carl Jung
Small debts are like small shot; they are rattling on every side, and can scarcely be escaped without a wound; great debts are like cannon; of loud noise, but little danger. – Samuel Johnson
Interest on debts grow without rain. – Yiddish Proverb
He that dies pays all debts.”
If someone takes your time, it is the only debt that can’t be repaid. – Unknown
Debt is a social and ideological construct, not a simple economic fact. – Noam Chomsky
Debt is dumb. Cash is king. – Dave Ramsey
Debt basically enables people to live a lie. – Rachel Cruze
Debt is one person’s liability, but another person’s asset. – Paul Krugman
It’s better to be anonymously rich than deceptively poor. – Len Penzo
Wouldst thou shut up the avenues of ill, Pay every debt as if God wrote the bill. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
If one wants to get out and stay out of debt, then he should act his wage. – Unknown
The borrower is servant to the lender. – The Bible
Debt is like any other trap, easy enough to get into, but hard enough to get out of. – Henry Wheeler Shaw
An emotional debt is hard to square. – Iceberg Slim
Debt trap can sometimes become a Death trap. – Ankala V Subbarao
Debt is the slavery of the free. – Publilius Syrus
Debt is part of the human condition. Civilization is based on exchanges – on gifts, trades, loans – and the revenges and insults that come when they are not paid back. – Margaret Atwood
Lying rides upon debts back. – Benjamin Franklin
Worrying is like paying on a debt that may never come due.”– Will Rogers
Who goes a borrowing, goes a sorrowing. – Thomas Tusser
I say to you never involve yourself in debt, and become no man’s surety. – Andrew Jackson
Debt is a prolific mother of folly and of crime. – Benjamin Disraeli
Debt is a four letter word and means a four word sentence – Be Prepared for Trouble. – Lucas Remmerswaal
Speak not of my debts unless you mean to pay them. – George Herbert
One of the greatest disservices you can do a man is to lend him money that he can’t pay back. – Jesse Jones
Youth is in danger until it learns to look upon debts as furies. – Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton
Small debts are like small shot; they are rattling on every side, and can scarcely be escaped without a wound. – Samuel Johnson
He looks the whole world in the face for he owes not any man. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Creditors have better memories than debtors. – Benjamin Franklin
Do not accustom yourself to consider debt only as an inconvenience; you will find it a calamity. – Samuel Johnson
Annual income, twenty pounds; annual expenditure, nineteen pounds; result, happiness. Annual income, twenty pounds; annual expenditure, twenty-one pounds; result, misery. – Charles Dickens
If I owe you a pound, I have a problem; but if I owe you a million, the problem is yours. – John Maynard Keynes
You can’t be in debt and win. It doesn’t work. – Dave Ramsey
Simply put, unsustainable debt is helping to keep too many poor countries and poor people in poverty. – William J. Clinton
One of the greatest disservices you can do a man is to lend him money that he can’t pay back. – Jesse H. Jones
A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man; a debt he proposes to pay off with your money. – Gordon Liddy
Running into debt isn’t so bad. It’s running into creditors that hurts. – Unknown
I go on the principle that a public debt is a public curse. – James Madison
A billion here, a billion there, sooner or later it adds up to real money. – Everett Dirksen
You can’t spend your way out of recession or borrow your way out of debt. – Daniel Hannan
The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print money to do that. – Alan Greenspan
Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken. – Warren Buffett
If you’re thinking of debt, that’s what you’re going to attract. – Bob Proctor
Many delight more in giving of presents than in paying their debts. – Sir Philip Sidney
Poets, like friends to whom you are in debt, you hate. – William Wycherley
There are no shortcuts when it comes to getting out of debt. – Dave Ramsey
A grudge is just another debt owed. – Alex London
If you have debt I’m willing to bet that general clutter is a problem for you too. – Suze Orman
There are four things every person has more of than they know: sins, debt, years, and foes. – Persian Proverb
Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure, when he’s really selling himself to it. – Benjamin Franklin
Why will some people who have $20 buy something for $40 if it’s marked down from $100? – Clifford Cohen
It shows nobility to be willing to increase your debt to a man to whom you already owe much. – Cicero
Live within your means, never be in debt, and by husbanding your money you can always lay it out well. – Andrew Jackson
It is thrifty to prepare today for the wants of tomorrow. – Aesop
It takes as much imagination to create debt as to create income. – Leonard Orr
A habit of debt is very injurious to the memory. – Austin O’Malley
In the long run we shall have to pay our debts at a time that may be very inconvenient for our survival. – Norbert Wiener
A mortgage casts a shadow on the sunniest field. – Robert Green Ingersoll
Those have a short Lent, who owe money to be paid at Easter. – Benjamin Franklin
Wars in old times were made to get slaves. The modern implement of imposing slavery is debt. – Ezra Pound
The government who robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul. – George Bernard Shaw
Credit buying is much like being drunk. The buzz happens immediately, and it gives you a lift. The hangover comes the day after. – Joyce Brothers
Home life ceases to be free and beautiful as soon as it is founded on borrowing and debt. – Henrik Ibsen
The second vice is lying. The first is running in debt. – Benjamin Franklin
I like my players to be married and in debt. That’s the way you motivate them. – Ernie Banks
There are but two ways of paying debt: Increase of industry in raising income, increase of thrift in laying out. – Thomas Carlyle
A creditor is worse than a slave-owner; for the master owns only your person, but a creditor owns your dignity, and can command it. – Victor Hugo
Buying on the installment plan makes the months shorter and the years longer. – Unknown
We all think we’re going to get out of debt. – Louie Anderson