Quotes Library

July 15, 2025

[To one of her hotel housekeepers] Only the little people pay taxes.

Leona Helmsley (1920–2007), American hotelier, The New York Times, 12 July 1983, Jay p.174

What stupidly indiscreet, and fundamentally self-sabotaging statements have you made recently? Ever?

Now that may be true but sometimes the big people who don’t pay taxes get caught and get to go to prison, as Helmsley did—for tax evasion, naturally!


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