
“No nation has ever taxed itself into prosperity.”
La liberté politique, la tranquillité d'une nation, la science même, sont des présents pour lesquels le destin prélève des impôts de sang!
About Catherine de' Medici (1842), Part III: The Two Dreams
La liberté politique, la tranquillité d'une nation, la science même, sont des présents pour lesquels le destin prélève des impôts de sang!
About Catherine de' Medici (1842), Part III: The Two Dreams
“No nation has ever taxed itself into prosperity.”
A misquotation by Ronald Reagan in a 9 March 1982 speech, reported in Paul F. Boller, Jr., and John George, They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, & Misleading Attributions (1989), p. 13-14. In fact, Churchill used a very similar line ("To think you can make a man richer by putting on a tax is like a man thinking that he can stand in a bucket and lift himself up by the handle.") several times beginning with a speech at Free Trade Hall, Manchester, 19 February 1904.
Misattributed
Speech to The Lions' Club, Brussels (24 January 1972), quoted in The Common Market: Renegotiate or Come Out (Elliot Right Way Books, 1973), pp. 52–53
1970s
Literary Essays, vol. II (1870–1890), New England Two Centuries Ago
“Everything has its tax and the tax of knowledge is to teach its people.”
Eighth Infallible Sayings: Golden sayings of Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq (AS) http://www.ezsoftech.com/islamic/infallible8.asp
Regarding Knowledge & Wisdom, General
As quoted in The New York Times (14 August 1964)
“Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.”
The History of Freedom in Antiquity (1877)
Context: Liberty and good government do not exclude each other; and there are excellent reasons why they should go together. Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. It is not for the sake of a good public administration that it is required, but for security in the pursuit of the highest objects of civil society, and of private life.
As quoted in The Visual Theology of the Huguenots: Towards an Architectural Iconology of ...y Randal Carter Working Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1.11.12 p.101
Transhumanism (1957)
Context: Thanks to science, the under-privileged are coming to believe that no one need be underfed or chronically diseased, or deprived of the benefits of its technical and practical applications.
The world's unrest is largely due to this new belief. People are determined not to put up with a subnormal standard of physical health and material living now that science has revealed the possibility of raising it. The unrest will produce some unpleasant consequences before it is dissipated; but it is in essence a beneficent unrest, a dynamic force which will not be stilled until it has laid the physiological foundations of human destiny.
“Taxes are not to be laid on the people but by their consent in person or by deputation.”
Argument Against the Writs of Assistance (1761)