Friends and neighbors, the taxes are indeed very heavy, and if those laid on by the government were the only ones we had to pay, we might more easily discharge them; but we have many others, and much more grievous to some of us. We are taxed twice as much by our idleness, three times as much by our pride, and four times as much by our folly; and from these taxes the commissioners cannot ease or deliver us by allowing an abatement.


Benjamin Franklin - (1706-90), U.S. statesman, scientist, inventor and writer. Autobiography and Other Writings by Benjamin Franklin, edited by Russel B. Nye. 1949. p.169