Ralph Waldo Emerson

You cannot do wrong without suffering wrong.

Do the thing and you will have the power. But they that do not the thing, had not the power.

Fine manners need the support of fine manners in others.

Liberty is slow fruit. It is never cheap; it is made difficult because freedom is the accomplishment and perfectness of man.

Genial manners are good, and power of accommodation to any circumstance, but the high prize of life, the crowning fortune of a man is to be born with a bias to some pursuit, which finds him in employment and happiness, — whether it be to make baskets, or broadswords, or canals, or statutes, or songs. I doubt not this was the meaning of Socrates, when he pronounced artists the only truly wise, as being actually, not apparently so.

Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.

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.

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

I like my players to be married and in debt. That’s the way you motivate them.

Debt is dumb. Cash is king.

If there is anyone to whom I owe money, I’m prepared to forget it if they are.

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

We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.

Debt is to man what the serpent is to the bird; its eye fascinates, its breath poisons, its coil crushes sinew and bone, its jaw is the pitiless grave.

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

Interest on debts grow without rain.

Wars in old times were made to get slaves. The modern implement of imposing slavery is debt.

In the long run we shall have to pay our debts at a time that may be very inconvenient for our survival.

There are some debts that can’t be paid with money.

A decent society wouldn’t push millions of student into debt. It would recognize that higher education isn’t mainly a personal investment. It is a public good.

Only debt is forever.