There are only three ways to meet the unpaid bills of a nation. The first is taxation. The second is repudiation. The third is inflation.

A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing.

You can examine the whole 19th century from the point of view of who would have maxed out their credit cards. Emma Bovary would have maxed hers out. No question. Mr. Scrooge would not have. He would have snipped his up.

Economy’s got to get moving, we’ve got to get the unemployment rate down. That may be the defining issue of the campaign.

Yes, we’ve still got more work to do. More work to do for every American still in need of a good job or a raise, paid leave or a decent retirement; for every child who needs a sturdier ladder out of poverty or a world-class education; for everyone who has not yet felt the progress of these past seven and a half years.

No nation was ever ruined by trade.

If you make any money, the government shoves you in the creek once a year with it in your pockets, and all that don’t get wet you can keep.

Riches are a good hand maiden, but a poor mistress.

Rather go to bed without dinner than to rise in debt.

Are we a nation that educates the world’s best and brightest in our universities, only to send them home to create businesses in countries that compete against us? Or are we a nation that encourages them to stay and create jobs, businesses, and industries right here in America?

The reason we should do a carbon tax is because it’s the right thing to do. It’s economics 101, elementary stuff.

Trust is central to an economy that works.

People concerned about inflation today tend to buy big houses and nice cars.

If the United States loses the economic weapons of control, it is very much weakened.

SpaceX has the potential of saving the U.S. government $1 billion a year. We are opposed to creating an entrenched monopoly with no realistic means for anyone to compete.

You know people talk about federal money as if it falls from heaven. You know we thank heaven for it, but it came out of people’s pockets – and I’ve driven all over Washington, D.C., I cannot find the money tree.

I haven’t been as wild with my money as somebody like me might have been. I’ve been very safe, very conservative with investments. I don’t blow money. I don’t have a ton of houses. I know things can go away. I’ve already had that experience.

I’m interested in movement, and I’m interested in money, and I’m interested in the movement of money.

The economy’s always been the engine for our national security.

If you know how to spend less than you get, you have the philosopher’s stone.

When you bring in multi-brand retail items into the country, you’re not just bringing the products, but you’re also harming local manufacturers.

Frugality is founded on the principal that all riches have limits.

Every time the Fed implements ‚quantitative easing,‘ a.k.a. printing more money, two things go up: taxes and inflation. When taxes and inflation go up, more jobs are lost.

Let me remind you that credit is the lifeblood of business, the lifeblood of prices and jobs.

The Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore.

We can choose a future where we export more products and outsource fewer jobs. After a decade that was defined by what we bought and borrowed, we’re getting back to basics, and doing what America has always done best: We’re making things again.

Cutting the deficit by gutting our investments in innovation and education is like lightening an overloaded airplane by removing its engine. It may make you feel like you’re flying high at first, but it won’t take long before you feel the impact.

Fuel prices are at the center of our lives. They affect our ability to travel, stay warm, and feed ourselves.

In December, I agreed to extend the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans because it was the only way I could prevent a tax hike on middle-class Americans. But we cannot afford $1 trillion worth of tax cuts for every millionaire and billionaire in our society. We can’t afford it. And I refuse to renew them again.

Innovations that are guided by smallholder farmers, adapted to local circumstances, and sustainable for the economy and environment will be necessary to ensure food security in the future.

If anything, taxes for the lower and middle class and maybe even the upper middle class should even probably be cut further. But I think that people at the high end – people like myself – should be paying a lot more in taxes. We have it better than we’ve ever had it.

If we can boondoggle ourselves out of this depression, that word is going to be enshrined in the hearts of the American people for years to come.

Until we have comprehensive financial education, we’ll never see the end of our booms and busts.

Even if the government spends itself into bankruptcy and the economy still does not recover, Keynesians can always say that it would have worked if only the government had spent more.

The dollar has lost over 90 percent of its value since the Fed was created.

The very design of neoliberal principles is a direct attack on democracy.

I know it’s going to be the private sector that leads this country out of the current economic times we’re in. You can spend your money better than the government can spend your money.

Pricey oil makes clear that wealth really is energy in various forms.

The state of the economy is not the issue when it comes to growing a business. The relevant questions are always: ‚What business are you in? Furthermore, is it adapting to the times?‘

Politics is just a function of business now, just a tributary of the great entrepreneurial capitalist system.

Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.

Now, anybody who thinks that we can move this economy forward with just a few folks at the top doing well, hoping that it’s going to trickle down to working people who are running faster and faster just to keep up, you’ll never see it.

The use of money is all the advantage there is in having it.

Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our nation – not because of the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy. Our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago.

No money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction.

And what’s interesting, and I don’t think a lot of Americans understand this fact, is that, one, most new jobs are created by small businesses; two, most small businesses pay tax at the individual income tax, or many small businesses pay tax there.

You know, my Grandpop Finnegan used to have an expression: he used to say, ‚Joey, the guy in Olyphant’s out of work, it’s an economic slowdown. When your brother-in-law’s out of work, it’s a recession. When you’re out of work, it’s a depression.‘

Taxation is just a sophisticated way of demanding money with menaces.

To tax the community for the advantage of a class is not protection: it is plunder.

Foreigners don’t want to invest any more in France – and this is not working.

The people are hungry: It is because those in authority eat up too much in taxes.

Note, besides, that it is no more immoral to directly rob citizens than to slip indirect taxes into the price of goods that they cannot do without.

The problem with being an employee or self-employed is you pay the highest taxes.

There can be economy only where there is efficiency.

See, that’s why Barack’s running: to end the war in Iraq responsibly – to build an economy that lifts every family, to make sure health care is available for every American – and to make sure that every child in this nation has a world-class education all the way from preschool to college.

People do not understand what a great revenue economy is.

Agriculture not only gives riches to a nation, but the only riches she can call her own.

We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.

No other country in the world does what we do. On every issue, the world turns to us, not simply because of the size of our economy or our military might – but because of the ideals we stand for, and the burdens we bear to advance them.

The Planck satellite may detect the imprint of the gravitational waves predicted by inflation. This would be quantum gravity written across the sky.

Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.