A Quote by Thomas Jefferson

I, place economy among the first & most important republican virtues, & public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared

Thomas Jefferson

Quote Topics

Among Dangers Debt Economy Feared First Greatest Important Most Place Public Republican Virtues

Quote Author

Thomas Jefferson
American - President
April 13, 1743 - July 4, 1826

I place economy among the first and most important virtues and public debt as the greatest dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and in our comforts, in our labor and in our amusements. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.

Thomas Jefferson

As an economist specializing in the global economy, international trade and debt, I have spent most of my career helping others make big decisions - prime ministers, presidents and chief executives - and so I'm all too aware of the risks and dangers of poor choices in the public as well as the private sphere.

Noreena Hertz

If you have a sane economy, and by sane economy I mean one which is not addicted to debt, not a Ponzi economy, then the change in debt each year should contribute a minor amount to demand. Therefore, if you tried to correlate debt to the level of unemployment you would not find much of a correlation. Unfortunately that is not the economy we live in.

Steve Keen

The PUP came into office in 1998 when the public debt of Belize was over $600 million and the economy was at a standstill. When we left office in 2008, ten years later, the debt was higher, but a lot was accomplished: the economy was transformed and the social and physical infrastructure of the country significantly upgraded.

Said Musa

When Trump lied and claimed credit for 'the greatest economy in the history of our country,' even though it wasn't, and even though he inherited a strong economy, and goosed it up with trillions of dollars in debt, it didn't matter to most people.

George T. Conway III

It has been very humbling and gratifying to have these men as our role models. Your generation enabled America to close out the twentieth century as the greatest nation in the history of mankind, the only remaining superpower, the world's leading economy and the world's most respected and feared military force in the world - respected by our friends and allies, feared by our adversaries.

Eric Shinseki

I go on the principle that a public debt is a public curse and in a republican government more than in any other.

James Madison

The state owned monopolies are among the greatest millstones round the neck of the economy. Liberals must stress at all times the virtues of the market, not only for efficiency but to enable the widest possible choice. Much of what Mrs Thatcher and Sir Keith Joseph say and do is in the mainstream of liberal philosophy.

Jo Grimond

If ingratitude be numbered among the serious sins, then gratitude takes its place among the noblest of virtues.

Thomas S. Monson

What our Republican friends are doing, if we look at what they do and not what they say, they have decided that the most important thing in this country is to increase payments for interest on the national debt.

Tom Allen

Economy is the first and great article (economy such as I understand it) in my financial creed. The controversy between direct and indirect taxation holds a minor, though important place.

William E. Gladstone

There is no doubt that it is around the family and the home that all the greatest virtues, the most dominating virtues of human, are created, strengthened and maintained.

Winston Churchill

There's an argument that private debt, in some way, is creating indentured servants in our country. But public debt does not do that. In fact, public debt does the exact opposite - it relieves private debt.

Sam Seder

It is a little surprising given the strength of the economy that there is a perception - at least among some of the public - that the economy is not very good.

Edward Lazear

No pecuniary consideration is more urgent, than the regular redemption and discharge of the public debt: on none can delay be more injurious, or an economy of time more valuable. ... Cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible: avoiding occasions of expence (and) avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt ... not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burthen which we ourselves ought to bear.