Ralph Waldo Emerson

Like bees, they must put their lives into the sting they give.

The intellectual man requires a fine bait; the sots are easily amused. But everybody is drugged with his own frenzy, and the pageant marches at all hours, with music and banner and badge.

Coffee is good for talent, but genius wants prayer.

If a man owns land, the land owns him.

If a man will kick a fact out of the window, when he comes back he finds it again in the chimney corner.

Self-command is the main discipline.

Some people use one half their ingenuity to get into debt, and the other half to avoid paying it.

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

A man must cut down his outgoings and save his incomings if he wants to clear himself; you can’t spend your penny and pay debts with it too. Stint the kitchen if the purse is bare. Don’t believe in any way of wiping out debts except by paying hard cash. Promises make debts, and debts make promises, but promises never pay debts…

I go on the principle that a public debt is a public curse.

I took my power back, like, ‘Man, my financial situation don’t make me.’ I’m in debt – now what? And I’m still Ye.- Kanye West

Debt is a mistake between lender and borrower, and both should suffer.

Debt is like any other trap, easy enough to get into, but hard enough to get out of.

Those have a short Lent, who owe money to be paid at Easter.

Debt, n. An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slavedriver.

A hundred wagon loads of thoughts will not pay a single ounce of debt.

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.

A man in debt is so far a slave.

Speak not of my debts unless you mean to pay them.

Do not accustom yourself to consider debt only as an inconvenience; you will find it a calamity.

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.