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

August 3, 2025
The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools.
March 27, 2025
[On David Steel, Leader of the Liberal Party] He’s passed from rising hope to elder statesman without any intervening period whatsoever.
January 16, 2025
[On Friedrich Hayek’s Road to Serfdom] A plan to resist all planning may be better than its opposite, but it belongs to the same style of politics.
Page 89 of 122