Taxes Quotes by Thomas Paine

It is a general idea, that when taxes are once laid on, they are never taken off.

— Thomas Paine

Taxes were not raised to carry on wars, but that wars were raised to carry on taxes.

— Thomas Paine

The more acquisitions the government makes abroad, the more taxes the people have to pay at home.

— Thomas Paine

I know not whether taxes are raised to fight wars, or wars are fought in order to raise taxes.

— Thomas Paine

...taxes are not raised to carry on wars, but that wars are raised to carry on taxes

— Thomas Paine

What at first was plunder assumed the softer name of revenue.

— Thomas Paine

There are two distinct classes of men - those who pay taxes and those who receive and live upon taxes.

— Thomas Paine

War involves in its progress such a train of unforeseen circumstances that no human wisdom can calculate the end; it has but…

— Thomas Paine

To say that any people are not fit for freedom, is to make poverty their choice, and to say they had rather…

— Thomas Paine

In reviewing the history of the English Government, its wars and its taxes, a bystander, not blinded by prejudice nor warped by…

— Thomas Paine

“War is the common harvest of all those who participate in the division and expenditure of public money, in all countries. It…

— Thomas Paine

When it shall be said in any country in the world my poor are happy; neither ignorance nor distress is to be…

— Thomas Paine

Is it popular to pay our debts, to do justice, to defend the injured and insulted country, to protect the aged and…

— Thomas Paine

Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods. It would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as…

— Thomas Paine

The continual whine of lamenting the burden of taxes, however successfully it may be practiced in mixed governments, is inconsistent with the…

— Thomas Paine

The burden of the national debt consists not in its being so many millions, or so many hundred millions, but in the…

— Thomas Paine

Government ought to be as much open to improvement as anything which appertains to man, instead of which it has been monopolized…

— Thomas Paine

It can only be by blinding the understanding of man, and making him believe that government is some wonderful mysterious thing, that…

— Thomas Paine

“When a man pays a tax, he knows that the public necessity requires it, and therefore feels a pride in discharging his…

— Thomas Paine