Quotes Library

October 23, 2025

Governments last as long as the under-taxed can defend themselves against the over-taxed.

Bernard Berenson (1865–1959), American art historian, The Cynic’s Lexicon, Jonathon Green, ed. (London: 1986), p.22

But who comprises the undertaxed? And who the overtaxed?

Berenson set the cat among the pigeons here, giving no direction as to who is who? But my money is on those poor rich people being the undertaxed.


More Quotes

October 27, 2025
Few things are as immutable as the addiction of political groups to the ideas by which they have once won office.
August 5, 2025
00:40
[On being prime minister] Sometimes the strain is awful, you have to resort to Jane Austen.
August 25, 2025
He that is minded to obey all the commonwealth’s orders, whether through fear of its power or through love of quiet
Page 15 of 123