Bernard Berenson Quote - Liberty Quotes Blog

"Governments last as long
as the undertaxed can defend themselves
against the overtaxed."

by:	Bernard Berenson (1865-1959) American art historian
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Categories:	Government, Taxation, Tax
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Reader comments about this quote:

Half of our salaries go to taxes and fees. -- Joe, Rochester, MI 2
Ah, but the undertaxed are very good at hiding!! Many are hiding in Congress right now! (If you want to succeed in life, make yourself look like a lawyer, whether you are one or not.) -- Rick, Heartland, USA 3
The quote seems to have the sense of who is undertaxed and who is overtaxed reversed... and like Joe, about half of my household income goes to taxes and fees too... and yet the only reason that is possible is because I was blessed by not starving to death as a child thanks to food stamps and being able to attend an major university thanks to grants, scharlarships, loans and work study programs... I have no problem giving back having recieved so much... I guess it must be those who are too self centered or those who got it from the mommy & daddy that are most opposed. -- Anonymous, Reston, VA US 1 1
Anon has it right again. -- Dick, Fort Worth
hmmmm, because Anonymous was raised on mammon stolen from the noble labor's fruit and educated by slave labor, continuing a thief's life is good. Marx had it right, religion is the opiat of the people especially when we're speaking local, state, and federal Ecclesiastes, carnal man being god. Everyone needs to pay heavy, harsh, and mandatory tithes and offerings. -- Mike, Norwalk 2
At some point taxes will cause Atlas to shrug. Then comes the revolution and the parasites won't like it one bit. I was blessed by not starving to death as a child because my father got up every morning at 0430 and went to work logging in the forests of the Northwest. When it came time for me to go to university, I brought home some loan and grant applications. My father threw them in the trash and told me he would pay for my education. He was not going to have me depend on government before family. Between my cutting firewood and selling it in my spare time, and my father working (and paying taxes so Anonymous could go to school) I left college educated and flat broke, beholden to nobody but my parents. -- Ken, Allyn, WA 5
My, my, aren't we the sanctimonious ones! It's nice that none of us went to 'public' schools but were instead tutored privately in our parlors. I know we all have fond memories of the baby grand languishing in the background while we were being taught Greek and Latin as we sat at our very own personal secretaries during our grade, middle, and high school years. Thank goodness WE didn't 'take' public assistance to get from grade school through high school. It's also nice that most of our parents never took advantage of the 'GI Bill' to subsidize their higher education when college degrees were a relative rarity and that they wouldn't do it today. It was noble of them to never have taken advantage of VA loans to purchase their first house after WWII either but rather eschewed the federal ecclesia (we learned that term in our early Greek lessons by the glow of the fire in the hearth) and their socialistic programs. Oh yes, as I recall, we BOTH walked miles to the one-room schoolhouse through the snow AND had the tutors visit us in our cozy parlors - yeah ... that's it. - - PS, the undertaxed are those who make enough to pay no taxes at all. -- Terry Berg, Occidental, CA 1
It’s a bit ironic, when larceny and thieves are illuminated, the whistle blowers are called sanctimonious by thieves and others that don’t want to know or understand economies as exists in the real world and opine with rediculous examples. -- Mike, Norwalk 4
It's 'ridiculous' - not 'rediculous'. It's 'opiate' - not 'opiat'. It's 'ecclesia' - not 'Ecclesiastes' (which is a book in the bible). It's ironic that someone who hasn't taken one economics course professes keen insight into actual economics. Perhaps 'WE' actually didn't attend public school. It's called 'sarcasm'. -- Terry Berg, Occidental, CA 1 1
Terry, thanks for the spelling lesson, we geniuses regularly have that problem, and, in all my economics classes, they couldn't spell well either - just talked a lot of numbers . ;-) -- Mike, Norwalk 3
So it is that the Repulican tax regimen under Reagan/Bush/Bush has been overthrown. The rich undertaxed could no longer defend themselves against the downtrodden of this great country. A new tax regimen is coming. May the Clinton regimen last at least until the debt is paid off! -- Waffler, Smith 3
It is really great to read that some are taking on the hypocrisy on this site. -- Waffler, Smith
There is a point at which industry (whether individual or collective) cannot survive the burdens compelled upon them by their government. This has resulted in transforming America from the most productive nation on earth to a debtor nation that imports its goods from Communist slave labor countries. All those crying for raising taxes on businesses and business owners ought to know that it is at the expense of the liberties of BILLIONS in the slave countries that have filled the void left by American manufacturers. Prosperity via taxation is but a mafiosa that takes care only of itself and its monopoly. -- E Archer, NYC 4
I am left to mourn because of the unbelief, and the wickedness, and the ignorance, and the stiffneckedness of men; for they will not search knowledge, nor understand great knowledge, when it is given unto them in plainness, even as plain as word can be. -- Ben, Orem, UT 4
Business owners pay no more federal taxes than anyone else. They often must collect taxes in the form of withholding taxes, sales taxes, excise taxes etcetera and remit them to the appropriate agency. In this case they are just a pass through. They are remunerated for their efforts in collecting sales taxes. The rest of their income tax calculations is no different than for an individual, add up your income subtract your costs and pay your taxes. It ain't rocket science. "Small business" always crying the blues if BS in my book. -- Waffler, Smith 4
The quotes speaks for itself... The story has been the same throughout the ages... -- Robert Edwards, Somewhere in Europe
Let me put it another way; the poor are overtaxed and the rich are undertaxed... -- Robert Edwards, Somewhere in Europe 1
The rich pay the lion's of federal taxes. The poor pay very little, if any. -- Jim K, Austin 2
Oops, I meant "lion's share". -- Jim K, Austin
A slave is a slave, whether you live in a big house or a little one. Education affords, sometimes to rise above an ever escalating curve of inflation. Socialism in its very nature is unnatural and anti Liberty and Freedom, which is NOT merchandise to be sold by the statist who embrace socialism. Small business, carries the burden of independence and leadership. Hidden matching funds for the gov must come out of thin air. Or passed on to the consumer ? Most will never taste the smoke of battle as government has cornered the independent over time. Nor will they every see it first hand, or talk, face to face with the enemy. Liberty is a responsibility, not for the faint of heart ! The road less traveled. For those that seek to justify socialism, your ether weak, or an idiot. Maybe both. Thinking you have something, when you don't ! The poor, depending on which scale you look at, carry the burden of knowing they are poor, the rich on the other hand have the responsibility to look after the poor, and when shrugging that responsibility, it is sin unto you. Your wealth is a gift from God ! A test of humankind concerning oppression of ones on brother and neighbor. Let the poor no envy the rich, and let not the rich scorn the poor. The poor you have with you always. -- Ronw13, Yachats Or 2
That is why the government constantly raises the bottom end of the income tax bracket and increases taxes at the top. We are at a point that talk of tax cuts do no good politically because the majority pay no income tax and many look at tax cuts as a threat to their hand outs. The only defense the top earners have is to lobby Washington and to do that you have to be extremely wealthy. The majority of the "rich" only can dream of such wealth. In the end all this will mean is the death of any kind of middle class because it will be taxed out of existence. -- warren, olathe
The US has the highest corporate tax rate in the world. That is why so many cozy up to Washington and why the Dems get so much big contributions from Industry. They like to raise taxes on corporate America while doing favors for their contributors. Crony capitalism. We used to call it Fascism when it was done in Europe but here it is just business as usual. -- warren, olathe

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