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, Inventor
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
The rope by which the great blocks of taxes are attached to any citizenry is simple loyalty.
—Stephen King (b.1947) American Novelist, Screenwriter, Columnist, Film Director
The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing.
—Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619–83) French Statesman
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
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
Every advantage has its tax.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
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
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
It is getting harder and harder to support the government in the style to which it has become accustomed.
—Unknown
Taxes and golf are alike, you drive your heart out for the green, and then end up in the hole.
—Unknown
The tax collector must love poor people. He is creating so many of them.
—Burton Hillis (William E. Vaughan) (1915–77) American Columnist, Author
It’s getting so that children have to be educated to realize that “Damn” and “Taxes” are two separate words.
—Unknown
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
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
Death and taxes and childbirth! There’s never any convenient time for any of them!
—Margaret Mitchell (1900–49) American Novelist, Journalist
The hardest thing to understand in the world is the income tax.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
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
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) American Aerospace Engineer
No matter how bad a child is, he is still good for a tax deduction.
—U.S. Proverb
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
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 Whisky Distiller
Nothing is so well calculated to produce a death-like torpor in the country as an extended system of taxation and a great national debt.
—William Cobbett (1763–1835) English Journalist, Social Reformer
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
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
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
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
I have always paid income tax. I object only when it reaches a stage when I am threatened with having nothing left for my old age—which is due to start next Tuesday or Wednesday.
—Noel Coward (1899–1973) English Dramatist, Actor, Composer
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
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
Leave a Reply