Economic Prudence Quotes

Nobody spends somebody else's money as carefully as he spends his own. Nobody uses somebody else's resources as carefully as he uses his own. So if you want efficiency and effectiveness, if you want knowledge to be properly utilized, you have to do it through the means of private property.

I am for a government rigorously frugal & simple, applying all the possible savings of the public revenue to the discharge of the national debt; and not for a multiplication of officers & salaries merely to make partisans, & for increasing, by every device, the public debt, on the principle of its being a public blessing.

The important lesson of the deficit is - and the national debt - is we have to be careful about how we're spending money.

Without industry and frugality, nothing will do; with them, everything.

A penny saved is twopence dear; A pin a day 's a groat a year.

You must, to get through life well, practice industry with economy, never create a debt for anything that is not absolutely necessary, and if you make a promise to pay money at a day certain, be sure to comply with it. If you do not, you lay yourself liable to have your feelings injured and your reputation destroyed with the just imputation of violating your word.

Watch the costs and the profits will take care of themselves.

It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which, if acted on, would save one half the wars of the world.

I am conservative with a small 'c.' It's possible to be conservative in fiscal policy, and tolerant on moral issues or questions of freedom of expression.

I wouldn't finance a fad if I were a banker.

Frugality includes all the other virtues.

Laws provide, as much as ispossible that the goods and health of subjects be not injured by the fraud and violence of others. They do not guard them from thenegligence or ill-husbandry of the possessors themselves.

Sometimes you have to make tough decisions to hold the line on spending.

It is past time for Republican leadership to answer for record deficits and reckless spending, both in Iraq and in the U.S. It's time for a plan to bring our troops home.

Economy consists in a due and proper application of the means afforded according to the ability of the employer and the situation chosen; care being taken that the expenditure is prudently conducted.

As wiser Physicians tamper not excessively with their Patients, rather observing and complying with the motions of nature, then contradicting it with vehement Administrations of their own; so in Politicks and Economics the same must be used;

Pray a little more, work a little harder, save, wait, be patient and, most of all, live within our means. That's the American way. It's not spending ourselves into prosperity or taxing ourselves into prosperity.

I've been a conservative when it comes to budgeting issues and streamlining government.

You've got to be frugal. If you want to make one peso and you spent two, you'll never make it. You must be very stupid if you don't know what you should save on.

Economy has frequently nothing whatever to do with the amount of money being spent, but with the wisdom used in spending it.

Frugality is good if liberality be joined with it. The first is leaving off superfluous expenses; the last is bestowing them to the benefit of others that need. The first without the last begets covetousness; the last without the first begets prodigality.

What we need to do is not only live within our means, but start paying down the deficit, and offer an opportunity at least for the next generation to get out.

I knew once a very covetous, sordid fellow [perhaps William Lowndes], who used to say, 'Take care of the pence, for the pounds will take care of themselves.

I commend to you the virtues of thrift and industry. In doing so, I do not wish you to be a "tightwad," if you will pardon that expression, or to be a freeloader, or anything of the kind.

Waste begets self-will; thrift begets meanness: but better be mean than self-willed.