MIRTH and TAXES
A Plethora of Apropos Quotes
"The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest amount of
feathers with the least possible amount of hissing."
- Jean Baptiste Colbert , Minister of Finance under Louis XIV, 1668
"I'm proud to be paying taxes in the United States. The only thing is, I could be just
as proud for half the money."
- Arthur Godfrey
"What's the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? Well, for one
thing, a taxidermist only takes your skin."
- Mark Twain
"There are two distinct classes of men...those who pay taxes and those who receive
and live upon taxes."
- Thomas Paine
"People who complain about taxes can be divided into two classes: men and women." - Anon
"Rich bachelors should be heavily taxed. It is not fair that some men should be
happier than others."
- Oscar Wilde
"Why does a slight tax increase cost you two hundred dollars, and a substantial
tax cut save you thirty cents?"
- Peg Bracken
"Taxes and golf are alike. You drive your heart out for the green, and then end up in the hole."
- Anon
"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
"The United States is the only country where it takes more brains to figure your
tax than to earn the money to pay it."
- Edward J. Gurney
"This (preparing my tax return) is too difficult for a mathematician.
It takes a philosopher."
- Albert Einstein
"A heavy or progressive or graduated income tax is necessary for the proper
development of Communism."
- Karl Marx
"The Taxpayer.. That's someone who works for the federal government, but
doesn't have to take a civil service examination."
- Ronald Reagan, U.S. President
"If Patrick Henry thought that taxation without representation was bad, he
should see how bad it is with representation."
- Farmer's Almanac
"Our forefathers made one mistake. What they should have fought for was
representation without taxation."
- Fletcher Knebel
"Government is not reason. Government is not eloquence. It is force.
And, like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."
- George Washington, U.S. President
"When more of the people's sustenance is exacted through the form of
taxation than is necessary to meet the just obligations of Government
and expenses of its economical administration, such exaction becomes
ruthless extortion and a violation of the fundamental principles of
a free Government."
- Grover Cleveland, U.S. President
"The federal income tax system is a disgrace to the human race."
- Jimmy Carter, U.S. President
"Read my lips. No new taxes."
- George Bush, U.S. President
"I have no intention of raising taxes."
- Bill Clinton, U.S. President
"When the President does it, that means it is not illegal."
- Richard M. Nixon, U.S. President and attorney
"The only limit on a government's repression is the tolerance of
the people it governs."
- a 19th century attorney
"Remember, the government doesn't give us rights, our creator does.
Government can only deny them to us."
- Curt Rich
"Governments don't give rights. Governments take rights away."
- Anon
"If we do not change our direction, we are likely to end up where we are headed."
- Sam Stoddard
"There are two methods, or means, and only two, whereby man's needs and
desires can be satisfied. One is the production and exchange of wealth;
this is the economic means. The other is the uncompensated appropriation
of wealth produced by others; this is the political means."
- Albert Jay Nock
"The politician's promises of yesterday are the taxes of today."
- Mackenzie King
"The reward of energy, enterprise and thrift...is taxes."
- W. Feather
"It is not from top to bottom that societies die; it is from bottom to top."
- Henry George
"The trouble with an income-tax reduction is that it will stimulate business
just enough to put everybody in a higher tax bracket."
- Harold Coffin
"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
"A society which turns so many of its best and brightest into tax
lawyers may be doing something wrong."
- Hoffman F. Fuller
"In the matter of taxation, every privilege is an injustice."
- Voltaire
"Only little people pay taxes."
- Leona Helmsley
"The income tax created more criminals than any other single act of government."
- Barry Goldwater, almost U.S. President
"Taxes are not levied for the benefit of the taxed."
- Robert Heinlein
"A fool and his money are soon parted."
- Aesop
"A fool and your money are soon partners."
- Kathleen James
"A fool and your money are soon partying."
- Anon
"The Government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend
upon the support of Paul."
- George Bernard Shaw
"I wouldn't mind paying taxes, if I knew they were going to a friendly country."
- Dick Gregory
"The Lottery: a tax on people who are bad at math."
- Anon
"The Dime: a dollar with all the taxes taken out."
- Anon
"A penny saved is a Congressional oversight."
- Lazarus Long
"Tax Relief? Myghod, now they're taxing everything!!"
- Mike Jittlov
"Isn't it appropriate that the month of the tax begins with April
Fool's Day and ends with cries of 'May Day!'?"
- Rob Knauerhase
"A government that is large enough to supply everything you
need is large enough to take everything you have."
- Thomas Jefferson
"There's nothing wrong with the younger generation that becoming
taxpayers won't cure."
- Dan Bennett
"Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt."
- Herbert Hoover, U.S. President
"The meek shall inherit the work."
- Anon
"A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well."
- Anon
"I made it, I spent it."
- Ernie Kovacs, to an IR$ auditor
"Seizure Fever - Catch It!"
- posters in the IR$ Headquarters
"It is the duty of a good shepherd to shear his sheep, not to skin them."
- Tiberius Caesar
"In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."
- Benjamin Franklin
"We have long had death and taxes as the two standards of inevitability. But
there are those who believe that death is the preferable of the two. 'At
least,' as one man said, 'there's one advantage about death; it doesn't get
worse every time Congress meets'."
- Erwin N. Griswold
"It used to be that death and taxes alone were inevitable.
Now there's shipping and handling."
- Bert Murray
"Death and taxes may be certain, but we don't have to die every year."
- Anon
"To lay with one hand the power of the government on the property of the
citizen, and with the other to bestow it upon favored individuals to aid
private enterprises and build up private fortunes, is none the less a
robbery because it is done under the forms of law and is called taxation.
This is not legislation. It is a decree under legislative forms."
- Citizens' Savings and Loan Association v. City of Topeka,
87 U.S. 655, 664, 20 Wall. 655 (1874)
"It is safest to shut up and pay, which is what I shall eventually do, though
I shall hate having to sell the children."
- Russell Baker
"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
"The politicians don't just want your money. They want your soul. They want
you to be worn down by taxes until you are dependent and helpless. When you
subsidize poverty and failure, you get more of both."
- James Dale Davidson
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
- the Net's favorite Edmund Burke quote
"If nothing changes.. Nothing changes."
- a bumper sticker I just saw
"Choice is a powerful thing. If you still have it."
- an L.A. street-person