Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …
Quoted in Money and Men by Robert McCann Rice (1941) but no prior source is extant.
Misattributed
Widely quoted statement on the reasons for the American War of Independence sometimes cited as being from Franklin's autobiography, but this statement was never in any edition.
Variants from various small publications from the 1940s:
The refusal of King George to allow the colonies to operate an honest money system, which freed the ordinary man from clutches of the money manipulators was probably the prime cause of the revolution.
The refusal of King George to allow the Colonies to operate on an honest Colonial system, which freed the ordinary man from the clutches of the money manipulators, was probably the prime cause of the revolution.
The refusal of King George to allow the colonies to operate on an honest, colonial money system, which freed the ordinary man from the clutches of the money manipulators, was probably the prime cause of the revolution.
Some of the statement might be derived from those made during his examination by the British Parliament in February 1766, published in "The Examination of Benjamin Franklin" in The Parliamentary History of England from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803 (1813); when questioned why Parliament had lost respect among the people of the Colonies, he answered: "To a concurrence of causes: the restraints lately laid on their trade, by which the bringing of foreign gold and silver into the Colonies was prevented; the prohibition of making paper money among themselves, and then demanding a new and heavy tax by stamps; taking away, at the same time, trials by juries, and refusing to receive and hear their humble petitions".
Misattributed
Variant: The colonies would gladly have borne the little tax on tea and other matters had it not been that England and the Rothschild's Bank took away from the colonies their money which created unemployment, dissatisfaction and debt.
Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …
Quoted in Money and Men by Robert McCann Rice (1941) but no prior source is extant.
Misattributed
Joan Robinson (1903–1983) English economist
Source: Economic Heresies (1971), Chapter V, Nonmonetary Models, p. 67
Grant Morrison (1960) writer
Source: Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human
Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)
Bush-Reagan Debate 1980 on Taxes at League of Women Voters. (24 April 1980) · video footage http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edchtf9MS7g <br class="br">1980s
“If we start space colonies in, say, the next 20 years, I would put my money on the asteroids.”
Freeman Dyson (1923) theoretical physicist and mathematician
As quoted in "The Danger of Cosmic Genius" https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/12/the-danger-of-cosmic-genius/308306/ by Kenneth Brower, The Atlantic (December 2010) <br class="br">Context: There’s very good news from the asteroids. It appears that a large fraction of them, including the big ones, are actually very rich in H2O. Nobody imagined that. They thought they were just big rocks … It’s easier to get to an asteroid than to Mars, because the gravity is lower and landing is easier. Certainly the asteroids are much more practical, right now. If we start space colonies in, say, the next 20 years, I would put my money on the asteroids.
“The colonists, it seems, had to "pay taxes to which their consent had never been asked."”
Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer
Footnote: Today we pay taxes but our consent has been asked, and we have told the government to go ahead and tax us all they want to. We like it.
The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part V: Merrie England, George III
John A. Macdonald (1815–1891) 1st Prime Minister of Canada
1865, quoted on page 394 of Canadian Constitutional Development: Shown by Selected Speeches and Dispatches, with Introductions and Explanatory Notes https://books.google.ca/books?id=LRukOUFKGnkC&pg=PA394 published 1907 <br class="br">Dated
Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) French revolutionary lawyer and politician
"On the Condition of Free Men of Colour" (31 May 1791)