“A trifling debt makes a man your debtor; a large one makes him an enemy.”

Source: Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XIX: On worldliness and retirement, Line 11.

Original

Leve aes alienum debitorem facit, grave inimicum.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "A trifling debt makes a man your debtor; a large one makes him an enemy." by Seneca the Younger?
Seneca the Younger photo
Seneca the Younger 225
Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist -4–65 BC

Related quotes

Sai Baba of Shirdi photo

“If one perpetually thinks of me, and makes me his sole refuge, I become his debtor and will give my life to save him.”

Sai Baba of Shirdi (1836–1918) Hindu and muslim saint

Saying stated to his disciples

Josh Billings photo

“Better make a weak man your enemy than your friend.”

Josh Billings (1818–1885) American humorist

Affurisms. From Josh Billings: His Sayings (1865)

Muhammad al-Taqi photo

“Do not make an enemy of anyone until you know what there is between him and God! If he is good, God will not leave him to you and if he is bad, then your knowing of his badness will make you safe from him and so you do not need to make him your enemy.”

Muhammad al-Taqi (811–835) ninth of the Twelve Imams of Twelver Shi'ism

[Baqir Sharīf al-Qurashi, The life of Imam Muhammad al-Jawad, Wonderful Maxims and Arts, 2005]

Rutherford B. Hayes photo

“Let every man, every corporation, and especially let every village, town, and city, every county and State, get out of debt and keep out of debt. It is the debtor that is ruined by hard times.”

Rutherford B. Hayes (1822–1893) American politician, 19th President of the United States (in office from 1877 to 1881)

Diary (13 July 1879)
Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1922 - 1926)

Gustav Stresemann photo

“International indebtedness involves not only the usual slavery of debt, but the interest of the creditor nations in the debtor country.”

Gustav Stresemann (1878–1929) German politician, statesman, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate

Article for Zeit (20 April 1924), quoted in W. M. Knight-Patterson, Germany. From Defeat to Conquest 1913-1933 (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1945), p. 348
1920s

William Jennings Bryan photo
Henry L. Stimson photo

“The only way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him; and the surest way to make him untrustworthy is to distrust him and show your distrust.”

Henry L. Stimson (1867–1950) United States Secretary of War

The Bomb and the Opportunity (March 1946)

“No plan survives the first encounter with your enemy, so why bother to make one?”

Jim C. Hines (1974) American writer

Source: The Goblin Quest Series, Goblin Hero (2007), Chapter 13 (p. 243)

“Bored with your present enemies? Make new ones! Tell two of your women friends that they look alike.”

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Women & men

Robert A. Heinlein photo

Related topics