Never threaten, because a threat is a promise to pay that it isn’t always convenient to meet, but if you don’t make it good it hurts your credit. Save a threat till you’re ready to act, and then you won’t need it.

George Horace Lorimer (1867-1937) American journalist, author, magazine editor

Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son, ch. 15 (1901)
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