Quote

Probably, no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and civilization. We must make our choice; we cannot have both.

If we finally chose as a country to take responsibility for the wars that we believe we must engage in, and rather than borrow money to exercise that authority to go to war, we actually pay for these wars, that would save us over a trillion dollars, because that's what we have spent in Iraq and Afghanistan - all through borrowed money.

We've suffered a war, and one thing we know: Whenever our nation's faced war, whether it was in the 1980s when we were winning the Cold War or in the 1940s during World War II, the responsible thing to do has been to borrow money to win the war.

Without education, we are weaker economically. Without economic power, we are weaker in terms of national security. No great military power has ever remained so without great economic power.

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.

Debt is part of the human condition. Civilization is based on exchanges - on gifts, trades, loans - and the revenges and insults that come when they are not paid back.

The human world is a long way from meeting the needs of the present, and it is borrowing massively from the future - not only by piling up money debt, but also by degrading the resources from which all real wealth ultimately comes.

We are unnecessarily wasting our precious resources in wars... if we must wage war, we have to do it on unemployment, disease, poverty, and backwardness.