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Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.

Debt

I hold every man a debtor to his profession.
Bacon—Maxims of the Law. Preface.

I owe you one.
George Colman, the Younger—The Poor Gentleman. Act I. 2.

Anticipated rents, and bills unpaid,
Force many a shining youth into the shade,
Not to redeem his time, but his estate,
And play the fool, but at the cheaper rate.
Cowper—Retirement. L. 559.

Wilt thou seal up the avenues of ill?
Pay every debt as if God wrote the bill!
Emerson—Suum Cuique.

A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing.
Alex. Hamilton—Letter to Robert Morris. April 30, 1781.

At the time we were funding our national debt, we heard much about “a public debt being a public blessing”; that the stock representing it was a creation of active capital for the aliment of commerce, manufactures and agriculture.
Thomas Jefferson—On Public Debts. Letter to John W. Epps. Nov. 6, 1813.

The slender debt to Nature’s quickly paid,
Discharged, perchance with greater ease than made.
Quarles—Emblems. Bk. II. Emblem 13.

Debtes et mensonges sont ordinairement ensemble ralliés.
Debts and lies are generally mixed together.
Rabelais—Pantagruel. Bk. III. Ch. V.

Our national debt a national blessing.
Samuel Wilkerson. Used as a broadside issued by Jay Cooke, June, 1865. Qualified by H. C. Fahnstock, “How our national debt may be a national blessing.”