Moliere

The more we love our friends, the less we flatter them; it is by excusing nothing that pure love shows itself.

It shows nobility to be willing to increase your debt to a man to whom you already owe much.

Some debts are fun when you are acquiring them, but none are fun when you set about retiring them.

Interest on debts grow without rain.

Debt on anything that depreciates is disastrous.

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.

The second vice is lying, the first is running in debt.

Debt rolls a man over and over, binding him hand and foot, and letting him hang upon the fatal mesh until the long-legged interest devours him.

A small debt produces a debtor; a large one, an enemy.

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.

Debt is the secret foe of thrift, as vice and idleness are its open foes. The debt-habit is the twin brother of poverty.

Debts and lies are generally mixed together.

Many delight more in giving of presents than in paying their debts.

[Credit is a system whereby] a person who can’t pay, gets another person who can’t pay, to guarantee that he can pay.

Owing money has never concerned me so long as I know where it could be repaid.

Forgetfulness. A gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscience.