Quotes about loophole (37 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“The bourgeoisie are today evading taxation by bribery and through their connections; we must close all loopholes.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

Collected Works, Vol. 27, pp. 383–387.
Collected Works
Source: Revolution!: Sayings of Vladimir Lenin

“Yakka foob mog. Grug pubbawup zink wattoom gazork. Chumble spuzz. I love loopholes.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Source: There's Treasure Everywhere: A Calvin and Hobbes Collection

Love

“Right" he said "Let's get one thing clear. I am not here to teach you law-I am here to teach you loopholes.”

Catherine Jinks book Evil Genius

Source: Evil Genius

Law

“I don't believe in fate," she said at last. "But I do believe in… loopholes. I think a lot of what keeps the world going is the result of accidents — happy or otherwise — and taking advantage of these.”

Robin McKinley book Sunshine

Source: Sunshine

Fate , World , Thinking , Happiness

“The conventional model for explaining the uniqueness of American democracy is its division between executive, legislative, and judicial functions. It was the great contribution of Frank J. Goodnow to codify a less obvious, but no less profound element: the distinction between politics and policies, principles and operations. He showed how the United States went beyond a nation based on government by gentlemen and then one based on the spoils system brought about by the Jacksonian revolt against the Eastern Establishment, into a government that separated political officials from civil administrators.
Goodnow contends that the civil service reformers persuasively argued that the separation of administration from politics, far from destroying the democratic links with the people, actually served to enhance democracy. While John Rohr, in his outstanding new introduction carefully notes loopholes in the theoretical scaffold of Goodnow's argument, he is also careful to express his appreciation of the pragmatic ground for this new sense of government as needing a partnership of the elected and the appointed.
Goodnow was profoundly influenced by European currents, especially the Hegelian. As a result, the work aims at a political philosophy meant to move considerably beyond the purely pragmatic needs of government. For it was the relationships, the need for national unity in a country that was devised to account for and accommodate pluralism and diversity, that attracted Goodnow's legal background and normative impulses alike. That issues of legitimacy and power distribution were never entirely resolved by Goodnow does not alter the fact that this is perhaps the most important work, along with that of James Bryce, to emerge from this formative period to connect processes of governance with systems of democracy.”

Frank Johnson Goodnow (1859–1939) American historian

Abstract, 2009 edition:
Politics and Administration (1900)

People , Democracy , Sense , Partnership

“On-line service providers and others have a key role to play in freeing cyberspace of the taint of copyright lawlessness. Accountability for copyright violations committed by users is as essential for advancing this indispensable goal.
Who is responsible if a valuable copyrighted work is downloaded from a provider, and then copied on a digital video machine from which thousands of copies can be made, the last copy as pure and pristine as the first? And if no one can be held responsible, then who and what is to prevent the flood that will surely follow? This is a loophole larger than a parade of eight-wheelers through which a dam-busting avalanche of violations can rupture the purpose of your bill every day.”

Jack Valenti (1921–2007) President of the MPAA

Testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives on copyright immunities for ISPs. (7 February 1996) http://www.judiciary.house.gov/legacy/461.htm

“States should practice multilateralism and abandon unilateral actions that adversely affect a democratic and equitable international order, refraining from the threat or use of force. They should apply international law uniformly, abandon overreliance on “positivism” and efforts to circumvent treaty obligations or invent loopholes. As “nature abhors a vacuum” (Spinoza, Ethics), human rights law abhors “legal black holes””

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

United Nations General Assembly - Promotion of a democratic and equitable international order http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/IntOrder/A-68-284_en.pdf.
2013

Law , Nature , Effort

“"We are not in the business of finding faults. But when we detect some loopholes during the process of audit, we advise the executive to plug those loopholes." - Vinod Rai at a seminar on 'Public Accountability and the Role of CAG' organized by the Institute of Public Auditors of India at New Delhi on 28/03/2012.”

Vinod Rai (1948) Comptroller and Auditor General of India

Business

“I believe weapons of war have no place on our streets and we may have our disagreements about gun safety regulations, but we should all be able to agree on a few essential things. If the FBI is watching you for a suspected terrorist link, you shouldn’t be able to just go buy a gun with no questions asked. And you shouldn’t be able to exploit loopholes and evade criminal background checks by buying online or at a gun show. And yes, if you’re too dangerous to get on a plane, you are too dangerous to buy a gun in America.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), Speech about the Orlando Shooting (June 13, 2016)

War , Question

“Wall Street, corporations, and the super-rich, should finally pay their fair share of taxes. That’s why I support the so-called ‘Buffett Rule,’ because multi-millionaires should not be able to pay a lower tax rate than their secretaries. We should also add a new tax on multi-millionaires, crack down on tax gaming by corporations and close the carried interest loophole.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), Speech in Warren, Michigan (August 11, 2016)

Game , Support

“We have to build an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top. … How are we going to do it? We're going to do it by having the wealthy pay their fair share and close the corporate loopholes.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), First presidential debate (September 26, 2016)

“…a clever Toronto lawyer was deep into a technical argument before the Supreme Court. His position was dependent upon a close reading of the legal text and turned on the letter of the law. Suddenly the chief justice, Beverley McLachlin, leaned forward and asked the counsel if his argument also worked in French. After all, the law is the law in both languages and a loophole in one tends to evaporate in the other. Only an argument of substance stands up. The lawyer had no idea what to reply.”

John Ralston Saul (1947) Canadian author and essayist

Source: A Fair Country (2008), p. 128

Justice , Law , Idea , Reading

“Harry Dresden: Sometimes the most remarkable things seem commonplace. I mean, when you think about it, jet travel is pretty freaking remarkable. You get in a plane, it defies the gravity of a entire planet by exploiting a loophole with air pressure, and it flies across distances that would take months or years to cross by any means of travel that has been significant for more than a century or three. You hurtle above the earth at enough speed to kill you instantly should you bump into something, and you can only breathe because someone built you a really good tin can that seems tight enough to hold in a decent amount of air. Hundreds of millions of man-hours of work and struggle and research, blood, sweat, tears and lives have gone into the history of air travel, and it has totally revolutionized the face of our planet and societies.
But get on any flight in the country, and I absolutely promise you that you will find someone who, in the face of all that incredible achievement, will be willing to complain about the drinks. The drinks, people. That was me on the staircase to Chicago-Over-Chicago. Yes, I was standing on nothing but congealed starlight. Yes, I was walking up through a savage storm, the wind threatening to tear me off and throw me into the freezing waters of lake Michigan far below. Yes, I was using a legendary and enchanted means of travel to transcend the border between one dimension and the next, and on my way to an epic struggle between ancient and elemental forces. But all I could think to say, between panting breaths, was, "Yeah. Sure. They couldn't possibly have made this an escalator."”

Jim Butcher The Dresden Files

The Dresden Files, Summer Knight (2002)

People , Way , Travel , History

““Well, birth control’s easy. The first thing you have to know is that it doesn’t work.”
“What?”
“Not consistently. No matter how careful you are, every time you play hide-the-salami with the boys, you’re running the risk of ending up with a belly full of consequences.”
“But—”
“Contraceptive spells are never entirely reliable. That’s because their power comes from the Mother, and the Mother wants children. Each cantrip has its loophole, every fetish its flaw. Ultimately, contraception is just a way of luring you into playing her game.”
“You mean that sooner or later it’s going to fail me?”
“That’s not what I said. It works well enough for enough of us that the rest will take their chances. But the odds are never going to be as good as you’d like them to be. There are no guarantees.””

Michael Swanwick book The Iron Dragon's Daughter

Source: The Iron Dragon's Daughter (1993), Chapter 10 (pp. 168-169)

Children , Way , Game , Boy

“Acts of creation are ordinarily reserved for gods and poets, but humbler folk may circumvent this restriction if they know how. To plant a pine, for example, one need be neither god nor poet; one need only own a shovel. By virtue of this curious loophole in the rules, any clodhopper may say: Let there be a tree—and there will be one.”

Aldo Leopold book A Sand County Almanac

“December: Pines above the Snow”, p. 81.
A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "November: Axe-in-Hand," "November: A Mighty Fortress," and "December: Pines above the Snow"

God , Tree

“The entire history of Wall Street was the story of scandals, it now seemed to him, linked together tail to trunk like circus elephants. Every systemic market injustice arose from some loophole in a regulation created to correct some prior injustice.”

Michael Lewis book Flash Boys

Source: Flash Boys (2014), p. 101

History

“With regard to migration, I welcome Europe’s increasing movement towards a sensible policy and sensible measures. I would like to make it clear that recently Hungary has closed all the legal loopholes, and it is also prepared for the potential failure of the agreement between the EU and Turkey. At the Hungarian-Serbian border we are able to stop a migration flow of any size. Hungary has also taken the first steps towards elimination of the migrant business: several NGOs clearly see the migrant issue as a business issue, so we shall create conditions for the full transparency of NGOs in Hungary. In my opinion, on the whole we are moving closer to a sensible policy. Those arguments are invalid which seek to link the issue of migration to funding which European policy entitles us to. In the future I shall continue to maintain that we in the V4 must not allow ourselves to be intimidated: we must remain committed to a sensible migrant policy.”

Viktor Orbán (1963) Hungarian politician, chairman of Fidesz

Speech after the meeting of the Visegrád Four http://www.miniszterelnok.hu/prime-minister-viktor-orbans-speech-after-the-meeting-of-the-visegrad-four/, 28 March 2017, Warsaw

Failure , Business , Future

“He (Donald Trump) called for a new tax loophole – let’s call it the Trump Loophole – because it would allow him to pay less than half the current tax rate on income from many of his companies. He’d pay a lower rate than millions of middle class families.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), Speech in Warren, Michigan (August 11, 2016)

Family

“The time has gone by when a Huxley could believe that while science might indeed remould traditional mythology, traditional morals were impregnable and sacrosanct to it. We must learn not to take traditional morals too seriously. And it is just because even the least dogmatic of religions tends to associate itself with some kind of unalterable moral tradition, that there can be no truce between science and religion.
There does not seem to be any particular reason why a religion should not arise with an ethic as fluid as Hindu mythology, but it has not yet arisen. Christianity has probably the most flexible morals of any religion, because Jesus left no code of law behind him like Moses or Muhammad, and his moral precepts are so different from those of ordinary life that no society has ever made any serious attempt to carry them out, such as was possible in the case of Israel and Islam. But every Christian church has tried to impose a code of morals of some kind for which it has claimed divine sanction. As these codes have always been opposed to those of the gospels a loophole has been left for moral progress such as hardly exists in other religions. This is no doubt an argument for Christianity as against other religions, but not as against none at all, or as against a religion which will frankly admit that its mythology and morals are provisional. That is the only sort of religion that would satisfy the scientific mind, and it is very doubtful whether it could properly be called a religion at all.”

J. B. S. Haldane (1892–1964) Geneticist and evolutionary biologist

Daedalus or Science and the Future (1923)

Life , Religion , Law , Learning

“I not only "don't choose to run" but I don't even want to leave a loophole in case I am drafted, so I won't "choose". I will say "won't run" no matter how bad the country will need a comedian by that time.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

Daily Telegram #1538, The First Good News of the 1928 Campaign! Mr. Rogers Says He Will Not Run For Anything (28 June 1931)
Daily telegrams

Time , Country

“Paul has no problem with wealth, yet he advocates positions that work against his personal economic interests. He notes that, while advocating the closing of tax loopholes, he has no difficulty taking advantage of those that remain. Fundamentally, Paul represents a middle path, as expressed in the ancient dictum that "men with vision walk in the middle."”

Michael Szenberg (1934) American economist

5.Paul Samuelson is Human.
Ten Ways to Know Paul A. Samuelson (2006)

Men , Problem , Personality , Wealth

“Arun Shourie tells us that a lot can be learned from the case of Narayan Guru who, early this century, as a member of the unapproachable Ezhava caste in Kerala, became an acknowledged religious leader and profoundly changed caste relations in Kerala for the better. He 'attained the highest spiritual states, thereby acquired unquestioned authority, and transformed society from within the tradition'. He made use of a major loophole in the rigidities of the caste system, a loophole which Hindu society deliberately maintained precisely because Hinduism was not merely a social system but, among other things, also a spiritual system: renunciates in general, and sages with acknowledged yogic realization in particular, are above the worldly divisions such as caste. They also have the authority to herald social transformations which Hindus would never accept from purely political busybodies.”

Narayana Guru (1855–1928) Indian social reformer

Elst, Koenraad (2002). Who is a Hindu?: Hindu revivalist views of Animism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and other offshoots of Hinduism. ISBN 978-8185990743

Learning , Change

“In the meantime, people are suffering because of the Democrats. So we've created, and they've created, and they've let it happen — a massive child-smuggling industry. That's exactly what it's become. Traffickers — if you think about this — human traffickers are making a fortune. It's a disgrace. These loopholes force the release of alien families and minors into the country when they illegally cross the border.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Remarks by President Trump at Cabinet Meeting Issued on: June 21, 2018 https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-cabinet-meeting-9/
2010s, 2018, June

People , Family , Thinking , Suffering

“In developped countries, successive governments have always acted like firemen putting out fires instead of architects designing new buildings. The tax loopholes they have created are responses to emotions provoked by a given event, or an attempt to ease social tension caused by taxpayer exasperation (and/or reflecting their power). Any rational global management policy must satisfy two imperatives: simplicity; and stability.”

Éric Pichet (1960) economist

General Theory of Social and Tax Expenditures and Proposals for Recasting the French System of Tax 'Loopholes' https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2841200 Article in Revue de Droit Fiscal n36 (2016).
Tax policy, Tax and Social Expenditures

Success , Country

“Yes. I came to Washington to lobby Senators and Congressmen to co-sponsor in support of the PAST Act and I'm hoping by making this public people will join me to help me get this bill passed. Links are available for them to contact their Congressman saying they support the PAST Act. That's all they have to do. You would think this is a no-brainer, that this would pass but there IS opposition. The law was passed in 1970 to stop soring but Horse Industry (HIOs) found loopholes and continued soring. USDA is charged with enforcement of the Horse Protection Act, but as the result of a 1976 amendment to the act, the USDA has for decades certified the horse industry organization to conduct the majority of inspections at horse shows. This self regulation scheme has failed miserably and has to be abolished. USDA inspectors are threatened by exhibitors at horse shows and must be frequently accompanied by security. If they had nothing to hide (like covering the scarred legs with paint or taking off other paraphernalia when USDA inspectors are around) why aren't they welcomed? That's why being their own inspectors is not working.”

Priscilla Presley (1945) actress and businesswoman from the United States and former wife of Elvis Presley

Priscilla Presley On The Cause She's So Passionate About And The First Time Elvis Took Her Breath Away http://www.huffingtonpost.com/pat-gallagher/priscilla-presley_b_4933783.html, 12 March, 2014.

People , Law , Hope , Support

“And Katerfelto, with his hair on end
At his own wonders, wondering for his bread.
'T is pleasant, through the loopholes of retreat,
To peep at such a world,—to see the stir
Of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book IV, The Winter Evening, Line 86.

World , Feeling

“And this is the whole shabby secret: to some men, the sight of an achievement is a reproach, a reminder that their own lives are irrational, and that there is no loophole - no escape from reason and reality. Their resentment is the cornered Dionysian element baring its teeth.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

Apollo and Dionysus (1969)

Men , Secret , Reality

“Being law-abiding means filing a paper on time, not parking near a hydrant, and getting a zoning variance before moving a fence on one's own property. A world continually tighter in these ways intensifies the search for loopholes, tempts the unscrupulous to invent them, hardens the cynic, and keeps alive the urge to break loose. Such pulses of thought and feeling are bound to take away the ease and pleasure of ethical conduct. Habitual morality is baffled by the stop-and-go, and people's disregard of injunctions causes no surprise; it seems rather to show firmness of mind.”

Jacques Barzun (1907–2012) Historian

"The Bugbear of Relativism," p. 98
The Culture We Deserve (1989)

People , Pleasure , World , Law

“The nature of life is to delight in all possible loopholes. Every creature is in some way hacking a living by reinterpreting the rules.”

Kevin Kelly (1952) American author and editor

Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995)

Life , Way , Nature

“Legends of prediction are common throughout the whole Household of Man. God speaks, spirits speak, computers speak. Oracular ambiguity or statistical probability provides loopholes, and discrepancies are expunged by Faith.”

Ursula K. Le Guin Hainish Cycle

Source: Hainish Cycle, The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), Chapter 5 “The Domestication of Hunch” (p. 55)

God , Faith

“Sanders: I have a D minus voting record, from the NRA. I lost an election probably, for congress here in Vermont back in 1988, because I believe we should not be selling or distributing assault weapons in this country. I am on record and have been for a very long time in saying we have got to significantly tighten up the background checks. We have to end the absurdity of the gun show loophole. 40 percent of the guns in this country are sold without any background checks. We have to deal with the straw man provision which allows people to legally buy guns and then distribute. We’ve got to take on the NRA. And that is my view. And I am, will do everything I can to—the tragedy that we saw in Parkland is unspeakable. And all over this country, parents are scared to death of what might happen when they send their kids to school. This problem is not going to be easily solved. Nobody has a magic solution, alright, but we’ve got to do everything we can do protect the children—
Todd: What does that mean? You say everything we can. Does that mean raising the age when you can purchase an AR-15? Does that mean limiting the purchase of AR-15s?
Sanders: Yes! Yeah, look. Chuck, what I just told you is that for 30 years, I believe that we should not be selling assault weapons in this country. These weapons are not for hunting, they are for killing human beings. These are military weapons. I do not know why we have five million of them running around the United States of America, so of course we have to do that. Of course we have to make it harder for people to purchase weapons. We have people now who are on terrorist watch lists who can purchase a weapon. Does this make any sense to anybody. Bottom line here, Republicans are going to have to say that it’s more important to protect the children of this country than to antagonize the NRA. Are they prepared to do that, I surely hope they are.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

Interviewed by Chuck Todd of NBC News on Meet the Press on 18 February 2018 after the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting ([Meet the Press - 18 February 2018, 18 February 2018, 1 September 2018, https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meet-press-february-18-2018-n849191, NBC News, Meet the Press]).
2010s, 2018

Death , Children , People , Age

“… the [Obama] administration has spent, in my view, too much time, in maintaining its extended hand of engagement toward the regime without getting anything in return. Meanwhile, the clock has been ticking. Some countries in the area are becoming more antsy about the imminence of Iran's ability to be equipped with weapons of mass destruction. Obviously, the rhetoric and language from some key countries would be to mention the fact we are exploring this and this is an option on the table. I could not say otherwise. But that doesn't mean to me that there is a major change of policy. We need to think a little bit outside the box and perhaps look at other avenues. It's not limited to the character of this administration because successive, previous administrations have fallen systematically into the same “loophole” -- and I'm not even saying the same “trap.” Einstein said, if I'm not mistaken, that “thinking that doing more of the same will produce a different outcome is a sign of insanity.””

Reza Pahlavi (1960) Last crown prince of the former Imperial State of Iran

When I look at the overall diplomacy of the free world, particularly of the U.S., I can only see a repeat pattern of the same attempts made while hoping to obtain a different result. Something's got to change.
As quoted by Felice Friedson, Iranian Crown Prince: Ahmadinejad's regime is "delicate and fragile" http://www.rezapahlavi.org/details_article.php?article=459&page=2, August 12, 2010.
Interviews, 2010

World , Hope , Thinking , Change

“Billionaires and huge corporations should not be allowed to use loopholes and tax havens to avoid paying their fair share. At a time of massive global inequality the very wealthy should be paying more in taxes, not less.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

Twitter post https://twitter.com/SenSanders/status/1090701532797038592 (31 January 2019)
2010s, 2019, January 2019

Time

“We are not in the business of finding faults. But when we detect some loopholes during the process of audit, we advise the executive to plug those loopholes.”

Vinod Rai (1948) Comptroller and Auditor General of India

Vinod Rai at a seminar on 'Public Accountability and the Role of CAG' organized by the Institute of Public Auditors of India at New Delhi on 28/03/2012.

Business

“The new tax bill should improve both the equity and the simplicity of our present tax system. This means the enactment of long-needed tax reforms, a broadening of the tax base and the elimination or modification of many special tax privileges. These steps are not only needed to recover lost revenue and thus make possible a larger cut in present rates; they are also tied directly to our goal of greater growth. For the present patchwork of special provisions and preferences lightens the tax load of some only at the cost of placing a heavier burden on others. It distorts economic judgments and channels an undue amount of energy into efforts to avoid tax liabilities. It makes certain types of less productive activity more profitable than other more valuable undertakings. All this inhibits our growth and efficiency, as well as considerably complicating the work of both the taxpayer and the Internal Revenue Service. These various exclusions and concessions have been justified in part as a means of overcoming oppressively high rates in the upper brackets--and a sharp reduction in those rates, accompanied by base-broadening, loophole-closing measures, would properly make the new rates not only lower but also more widely applicable. Surely this is more equitable on both counts.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1962, Address and Question and Answer Period at the Economic Club of New York

Making love , Parting , Effort

“Finally, our greatest asset in this struggle is the American people--their willingness to pay the price for these programs--to understand and accept a long struggle--to share their resources with other less fortunate people-to meet the tax levels and close the tax loopholes I have requested--to exercise self-restraint instead of pushing up wages or prices, or over-producing certain crops, or spreading military secrets, or urging unessential expenditures or improper monopolies or harmful work stoppages--to serve in the Peace Corps or the Armed Services or the Federal Civil Service or the Congress--to strive for excellence in their schools, in their cities and in their physical fitness and that of their children--to take part in Civil Defense-to pay higher postal rates, and higher payroll taxes and higher teachers' salaries, in order to strengthen our society--to show friendship to students and visitors from other lands who visit us and go back in many cases to be the future leaders, with an image of America--and I want that image, and I know you do, to be affirmative and positive-and, finally, to practice democracy at home, in all States, with all races, to respect each other and to protect the Constitutional rights of all citizens.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1961, Speech to Special Joint Session of Congress

School , Democracy , Peace , Home

“There's a loophole if you weigh galaxies and clusters because you're weighing the total amount of energy around galaxies. What if there's energy where galaxies aren't? What is where galaxies aren't? Nothing.”

Lawrence M. Krauss book A Universe from Nothing

"Lawrence Krauss: A Universe from Nothing" (2031)
Source: 23:32 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46sKeycH3bE&t=1412s