On the recordJanuary 1, 1791
It can only be by blinding the understanding of man, and making him believe that government is some wonderful mysterious thing, that excessive revenues are obtained.
Said by
Thomas Paine
Source
gutenberg.orgIt can only be by blinding the understanding of man, and making him believe that government is some wonderful mysterious thing, that excessive revenues are obtained.
In his critique of monarchical and aristocratic systems, this explains how governments secure excessive taxation.
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It was a sort of new form of government that insensibly served to put the old one out of sight and to unhinge it from the superstitious authority of antiquity.
Man cannot, properly speaking, make circumstances for his purpose, but he always has it in his power to improve them when they occur, and this was the case in France.
The object is not so much the produce of the tax as the justice of the measure.