In this article, you’ll find 100 famous quotes about debt that will surely make you wiser. Read on.
The perception that debt of any kind is damaging and destructive is all too common.
No wonder almost everyone, whether business-oriented or not, tries as much as possible to avoid being in debt.
However, despite the negative perception about debt, more and more individuals fall into debt, thanks to pressing economic needs.
This is evidenced by The Pew Charitable Trusts report, which revealed that 7 in 10 people believe debt is necessary for life, even though they do not want it.
That same study by the renowned independent nonprofit organization revealed that 80% of Americans are caught in the jaws of debt.
To understand the gravity of that revelation, step out of your house and count the first ten people you see.
As stated by the report, 8 of those ten people are in debt.
An immense figure, right?
The fact that almost everyone is caught up in the jaws of debt is an immense motivation behind this compilation of quotes about debt.
As a result, we should review the advice in quotes regarding debts.
These quotes are from some of the most brilliant business-oriented minds on making smart decisions on managing debts.
Key Takeaways
- Lack of Financial plannings leads to disaster.
- Never get comfortable with debt.
- Bad debt enslaves you.
- Spend within your means.
Quotes About Prudent Spending
1. Never spend your money before you have it.”
—Thomas Jefferson
2. “The man who never has money enough to pay his debts has too much of something else.”
—James Lendall Basford
3. Here is an equation worth remembering: Five dollars earned minus seven dollars spent equals an unhappy life.”
―Jon Morrison
4. “The man who never has money enough to pay his debts has too much of something else.”
—James Lendall Basford
5. “Why will some people who have $20 buy something for $40 if it’s marked down from $100?”
—Clifford Cohen
6. “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
7. “Annual income, twenty pounds; annual expenditure, nineteen pounds; result, happiness. Annual income, twenty pounds; annual expenditure, twenty-one pounds; result, misery.”
—Charles Dickens
Quotes to Consider Before Taking on Debts
8. “Some debts are fun when you are acquiring them, but none are fun when you set about retiring them.”
—Ogden Nash
9. “Debts are like children — begot with pleasure, but brought forth in pain.”
—Moliere
10. “Remember this: debt is a form of bondage. It is a financial termite.”
—Joseph P. Wirthlin
11. A man in debt is so far a slave.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
12. “The borrower is servant to the lender.”
—The Bible
13. Interest on debts grow without rain.”
—Yiddish Proverb
14. “Debt is like any other trap, easy enough to get into, but hard enough to get out of.”
—Henry Wheeler Shaw
15. “It is the debtor that is ruined by hard times.”
—Rutherford B. Hayes
16. Debt is a mistake between lender and borrower, and both should suffer.”
—Nassim Nicholas Taleb
17. When you get in debt you become a slave.”
—Andrew Jackson
18. “When a man is in love or in debt, someone else has the advantage.”
—Bill Balance
19. Small debts are like small shot; they are rattling on every side, and can scarcely be escaped without a wound.”
—Samuel Johnson
20. You can’t spend your way out of recession or borrow your way out of debt.”
—Daniel Hannan
21. “Debt is a prolific mother of folly and of crime.”
—Benjamin Disraeli
22. Debt is the slavery of the free.”
—Publilius Syrus
23. A habit of debt is very injurious to the memory.”
—Austin O’Malley
24. “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
25. “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
26. “Debt on anything that depreciates is disastrous.”
—Orrin Woodward
27. “Debt is dumb. Cash is king.”
—Dave Ramsey
28. “Debt is the worst poverty.”
—Thomas Fuller
29. “Debt, n. An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slavedriver.”
—Ambrose Bierce
30. “The only man who sticks closer to you in adversity than a friend is a creditor.”
—Unknown
“Debts are like children: the smaller they are the more noise they make.”
— Spanish Proverb
Quotes About Bad Debts
31. “Debts and lies are generally mixed together.”
—Francois Rabelais
32. “One of the greatest disservices you can do a man is to lend him money that he can’t pay back.”
—Jesse Jones
33. “Debt can turn a free, happy person into a bitter human being.”
—Michael Mihalik
34. “In the long run we shall have to pay our debts at a time that may be very inconvenient for our survival.”
—Norbert Wiener
35. “The second vice is lying. The first is running in debt.”
—Benjamin Franklin
36. “Who goes a borrowing, goes a sorrowing.”
—Thomas Tusser
37. “There are three kinds of people: the haves, the have-nots, and the have-not-paid-for-what-they-haves.”
—Earl Wilson
38. “A small debt produces a debtor; a large one, an enemy.”
—Publilius Syrus
39. “Debt is the secret foe of thrift, as vice and idleness are its open enemies.”
—James H. Aughey
40. “There are no shortcuts when it comes to getting out of debt.”
—Dave Ramsey
50. “A habit of debt is very injurious to the memory.”
—Austin O’Malley
51. “Don’t let your mouth write no check that your tail can’t cash.”
—Bo Diddley
52. “Wars in old times were made to get slaves. The modern implement of imposing slavery is debt.”
—Ezra Pound
53. “Debts and lies are generally mixed together.”
—Francois Rabelais
54. “Debts are like children: the smaller they are the more noise they make.”
—Spanish Proverb
55. “Debt is a social and ideological construct, not a simple economic fact.”
—Noam Chomsky
56. “A mortgage casts a shadow on the sunniest field.”
—Robert G. Ingersoll
57. “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
58. “Debt . . . . that peculiar nexus where money, narrative or story, and religious belief intersect, often with explosive force.”
—Margaret Atwood
59. “A Debt Problem Is, At Its Core, a Budgeting Problem.”
—Natalie Pace
60. “Debt is one person’s liability, but another person’s asset.”
—Paul Krugman
61. “Debt basically enables people to live a lie.”
―Rachel Cruze
62. “You can’t be in debt and win. It doesn’t work.”
—Dave Ramsey
63. “Simply put, unsustainable debt is helping to keep too many poor countries and poor people in poverty.”
—William J. Clinton
64. “One of the greatest disservices you can do a man is to lend him money that he can’t pay back.”
—Jesse H. Jones
Quotes To Inspire Your Debt Repayment
65. “The only way you will ever permanently take control of your financial life is to dig deep and fix the root problem.”
—Suze Orman
67. “The safest way to double your money is to fold it over and put it in your pocket.“
—Kin Hubbard
68. “When you know the impact of little expenses, you will realize that there is nothing little in this world.“
—Manoj Arora
69. “Before you spend, earn. Before you invest, investigate. … Before you retire, save.“
—William A. Ward
70. “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
71. “You don’t have to be a miser, just be wiser with your money.”
—Dorethia Conner Kelly
72. “Budgeting has only one rule: Do not go over budget.”
—Leslie Tayne
73. “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
74. “The safest way to double your money is to fold it over and put it in your pocket.”
—Kin Hubbard
75. “Never spend your money before you have it.”
—Thomas Jefferson
76. “There are no debt payments that can be sustained if the country does not grow.”
Alberto Hernandez
77. “Just because you can buy it doesn’t mean you can afford it.”
—Suze Orman
78. “Do not accustom yourself to consider debt only as an inconvenience; you will find it a calamity.”
—Samuel Johnson
79. “There are but two ways of paying debt: Increase of industry in raising income, increase of thrift in laying out.”
—Thomas Carlyle
80. “A man who pays his bills on time is soon forgotten.”
—Oscar Wilde
81. “No man’s credit is as good as his money.”
—E. W. Howe
82. “When a man is in love or in debt, someone else has the advantage.”
—Bill Balance
83. “Rather go to bed supperless, than rise in debt.”
—Benjamin Franklin
84. “If you think nobody cares if you’re alive, try missing a couple of car payments.”
—Earl Wilson
Quotes That Will Make You Pay Up Your Debts
85. “Where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice.”
—Dave Ramsey
86. “Interest works night and day; in fair weather and in foul. It gnaws at a man’s substance with invisible teeth.”
—Henry Ward Beecher
87. “Slight was the thing I bought,
—Paul Laurence Dunbar
Small was the debt, I thought,
Poor was the loan at best,
God! But the interest!”
88. “Some creditors will sing blues to lure you into debt and when you put on your dancing shoes, you’ll be compelled to dance electric shock.”
—Vincent Okay Nwachukwu
89. “It is inevitable that anyone who can borrow freely to cover errors of management will borrow rather than correct the errors.”
—Henry Ford
90. “Borrowing money from a friend always Interrupts the friendship flow. Especially after missing the payment deadline more than two weeks in a row.”
—Charmaine J. Forde
91. “You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.”
—William J. H Boetcker
92. “The unique danger today is the possibility that we may face longer-term stagnation as a consequence of relying too heavily on borrowed money.”
—Mortimer Zukerman
93. “Avoid debt that doesn’t pay you. Make it a rule that you never use debt that won’t make you money. I borrowed money for a car only because I knew it could increase my income. Rich people use debt to leverage investments and grow cash flows. Poor people use debt to buy things that make rich people richer.”
—Grant Cardone
94. “You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.”
—Abraham Lincoln
95. “I’ve seen more people fail because of liquor and leverage — leverage being borrowed money. You really don’t need leverage in this world much. If you’re smart, you’re going to make a lot of money without borrowing.”
—Warren Buffett
96. “Debt is the sort of bedfellow who is forever pulling all his covers away.”
—Minna Thomas Antrim
97. “Rather go to bed without dinner, than to rise in debt.”
—Benjamin Thomas Franklin
98. “Poverty Demoralizes. A man in debt is so far a slave.”
—Minna Thomas Antrim
99. “Live within your means, never be in debt. And by husbanding your money, you can always lay it out well.”
—Andrew Jackson
100. “Before borrowing from a friend, decide what you need most.”
—American Proverb
Final Thoughts
Escaping the horrifying bondage of debt is only possible through tactful financial planning and prudent spending.
We hope these quotes about debt would inspire you to make smart business decisions to avoid the destructive effects of bad debts.
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