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Bondage
Money
14. Debt
"Small debts are like small shot; they are rattling on every
side, and can scarcely be escaped without a wound: great debts
are like cannon; of loud noise, but of little danger."
Boswell: Life
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807. Bankruptcy; Debt; Debtor's
Prison
"Those who made the laws have apparently supposed, that every
deficiency of payment is the crime of the debtor. But the truth
is, that the creditor always shares the act, and often more than
shares the guilt, of improper trust. It seldom happens that any
man imprisons another but for debts which he suffered to be
contracted in hope of advantage to himself, and for bargains in
which proportioned his own profit to his own opinion of the
hazard; and there is no reason, why one should punish the other
for a contract in which both concurred."
Johnson: Idler #22 (September 16, 1758)
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1,341. Class; Debt;
Embarrassment
"It sometimes happens in the combinations of life, that important
services are performed by inferiors; but though their zeal and
activity may be paid by pecuniary rewards, they seldom excite
that flow of gratitude, or obtain that accumulation of
recompense, with which all think it their duty to acknowledge the
favour of those who descent to their assistance from a higher
elevation. To be obliged is to be in some respect inferior to
another; and few willingly indulge the memory of an action which
raises one whom they have always been accustomed to think below
them, but satisfy with faint praise and penurious payment, and
then drive it form their own minds, and endeavour to conceal it
from the knowledge of others."
Johnson: Rambler #166 (October 19, 1751)
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