Better a little caution than a great regret

I really enjoy this story, again from the richest man in babylon. There is a lot to learn from the lessons within this book.


Mathon then asks Rodan whether a loan would be well made if the borrower could not repay. "Must not the lender be wise and judge carefully whether his gold can perform a useful purpose to the borrower and return to him once more, or whether it will be wasted by one unable to use it wisely and leave him without his treasures, and leave the borrower with a debt he cannot repay?" Mathon then relates that there are three classes of borrowers, those who promise more financial security than they borrow and who are thus always safe to loan to, those who borrow based on their capacity to earn and ability to repay the loan and thus are safe to loan to, and those who have neither property nor assured earning capacity, who will likely never pay a loan back. He pulls out his box of security tokens and relates some short stories including that of a woman who borrowed money to make her son a merchant. Mathon knew that her son was not ready to be entrusted with such money but to suggest otherwise to the woman was to infuriate her. Since she offered jewels as security, Mathom could not refuse her. Mathon shows that one of the tokens of security is a simple knot tied in a piece of rope, given by a person that Mathon has long lended money to, who always promptly pays his loans back, and uses the loans wisely to become richer. Mathon has had such a good experience with this borrower that Mathon no longer requires the man to give a "real" security to borrow money. Mathon states that he does not discourage borrowing gold, he encourages it, if it be for a wise purpose. Mathon ends by telling Rodan to read what is carved beneath the lid of the token box, which saying applies equally to the borrower and the lender. "Better a little caution than a great regret."