Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotations on Taxation

There is just one thing I can promise you about the outer-space program—your tax-dollar will go further.
Wernher von Braun (1912–77) German-born American Engineer, Scientist

The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has. Even when you make a tax form out on the level, you don’t know when it’s through if you are a crook or a martyr.
Will Rogers (1879–1935) American Actor, Rancher, Humorist

No one can become rich by the efforts of only their toil, but only by the discovery of some method of taxing the labor of others.
John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic

Civil servants and priests, soldiers and ballet-dancers, schoolmasters and police constables, Greek museums and Gothic steeples, civil list and services list—the common seed within which all these fabulous beings slumber in embryo is taxation.
Karl Marx (1818–1883) German Philosopher, Economist

Taxes and golf are alike, you drive your heart out for the green, and then end up in the hole.
Unknown

Indoors or out, no one relaxes
In March, that month of wind and taxes,
The wind will presently disappear,
The taxes last us all year.
Ogden Nash (1902–71) American Writer of Sophisticated Light Verse

The tax collector must love poor people. He is creating so many of them.
Burton Hillis (William E. Vaughan) (1915–77) American Columnist, Author

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on Paul’s support.
George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright

If a thousand men were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible.
Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher

The rope by which the great blocks of taxes are attached to any citizenry is simple loyalty.
Stephen King (b.1947) American Novelist, Short-Story Writer, Screenwriter, Columnist, Film Director

The wisdom of man never yet contrived a system of taxation that would operate with perfect equality.
Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) American Head of State

To please universally was the object of his life; but to tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men.
Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman

The taxpayer—that’s someone who works for the federal government but doesn’t have to take the civil service examination.
Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American Head of State

It is important to remember that government interference always means either violent action or the threat of such action. The funds that a government spends for whatever purposes are levied by taxation. And taxes are paid because the taxpayers are afraid of offering resistance to the tax gatherers. They know that any disobedience or resistance is hopeless. As long as this is the state of affairs, the government is able to collect the money that it wants to spend. Government is in the last resort the employment of armed men, of policemen, gendarmes, soldiers, prison guards, and hangmen. The essential feature of government is the enforcement of its decrees by beating, killing, and imprisoning. Those who are asking for more government interference are asking ultimately for more compulsion and less freedom.
Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973) Austrian Economist, Philosopher, Author

The repose of nations cannot be secure without arms. Armies cannot be maintained without pay, nor can the pay be produced without taxes.
Tacitus (56–117) Roman Orator, Historian

There is no kind of dishonesty into which otherwise good people more easily and frequently fall than that of defrauding the government.
Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat

In levying taxes and in shearing sheep it is well to stop when you get down to the skin.
Austin O’Malley (1858–1932) American Aphorist, Ophthalmologist

No matter how bad a child is, he is still good for a tax deduction.
U.S. Proverb

Death and taxes and childbirth! There’s never any convenient time for any of them!
Margaret Mitchell (1900–49) American Novelist, Journalist

Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages.
H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American Journalist, Literary Critic

Every advantage has its tax.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher

In general, the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other.
Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author

It is getting harder and harder to support the government in the style to which it has become accustomed.
Unknown

I know all those people. I have friendly, social, and criminal relations with the whole lot of them.
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist

If we run into such debts as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, and give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses; And the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they do now, on oatmeal and potatoes, have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account; but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains around the necks of our fellow sufferers; And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for a second, that second for a third, and so on ’til the bulk of the society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery, to have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering … And the forehorse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression.
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer

The thing generally raised on city land is taxes.
Charles Dudley Warner (1829–1900) American Essayist, Novelist

Today’s dime is really a dollar with all the taxes deducted.
Unknown

It’s getting so that children have to be educated to realize that “Damn” and “Taxes” are two separate words.
Unknown

Once Confucius was walking on the mountains and he came across a woman weeping by a grave. He asked the woman what here sorrow was, and she replied, We are a family of hunters. My father was eaten by a tiger. My husband was bitten by a tiger and died. And now my only son! Why don’t you move down and live in the valley? Why do you continue to live up here? asked Confucius. And the woman replied, But sir, there are no tax collectors here! Confucius added to his disciples, “You see, a bad government is more to be feared than tigers.”
Lin Yutang (1895–1976) Chinese Author, Philologist

Taxing is an easy business. Any projector can contrive new impositions; any bungler can add to the old; but is it altogether wise to have no other bounds to your impositions than the patience of those who are to bear them?
Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman

I don’t know of a single foreign product that enters this country untaxed, except the answer to prayer.
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist

Rich bachelors should be heavily taxed. It is not fair that some men should be happier than others.
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright

The power to tax is the power to destroy.
John Marshall (1755–1835) American Judge, Lawyer

Of all our natural resources, the first one to be exhausted may be the taxpayer.
Unknown

The income tax has made liars out of more Americans than golf. Even when you make a tax form out on the level, you don’t know when it’s through if you are a crook or a martyr.
Will Rogers (1879–1935) American Actor, Rancher, Humorist

The collection of any taxes which are not absolutely required, which do not beyond reasonable doubt contribute to the public welfare, is only a species of legalized larceny. Under this republic the rewards of industry belong to those who earn them. The only constitutional tax is the tax which ministers to public necessity. The property of the country belongs to the people of the country. Their title is absolute. They do not support any privileged class; they do not need to maintain great military forces; they ought not to be burdened with a great array of public employees. They are not required to make any contribution to Government expenditures except that which they voluntarily assess upon themselves through the action of their own representatives. Whenever taxes become burdensome a remedy can be applied by the people; but if they do not act for themselves, no one can be very successful in acting for them.
Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American Head of State, Lawyer

Milk the cow, but do not pull off the udder.
Greek Proverb

The hardest thing to understand in the world is the income tax.
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist

It can only be by blinding the understanding of man, and making him believe that government is some wonderful mysterious thing, that excessive revenues are obtained. Monarchy is well calculated to ensure this end. It is the popery of government; a thing kept up to amuse the ignorant, and quiet them into taxes.
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) American Nationalist, Author, Pamphleteer, Radical, Inventor

The taxes are indeed very heavy, and if those laid by the government were the only ones we had to pay, we might more easily discharge them; but we have many others, and much more grievous to some of us. We are taxed twice as much by our idleness, three times as much by our pride, and four times as much by our folly; and from these taxes the commissioners cannot ease or deliver us by allowing an abatement.
Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat

A fool and his money are soon parted. The rest of us wait for tax time.
Common Proverb

Anyone may so arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible. He is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one’s taxes.
Learned Hand (1872–1961) American Judge, Judicial Philosopher

Government lasts as long as the under-taxed can defend themselves against the over-taxed.
Bernard Berenson (1865–1959) Russian-born American Art Historian

In other words, a democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–59) French Historian, Political Scientist

The only difference between death and taxes is that death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets.
Will Rogers (1879–1935) American Actor, Rancher, Humorist

Nothing hurts more than having to pay an income tax, unless it is not having to pay an income tax.
Thomas Dewar, 1st Baron Dewar (1864–1930) Scottish Businessperson

The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that still carries any reward.
John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) English Economist

Taxes, after all, are dues that we pay for the privileges of membership in an organized society.
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) American Head of State, Lawyer

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