"The great aim of all the governments of the earth: obedience and money. The object of taxation is, as the saying goes, to so pluck the goose as to procure the largest quantity of feathers with the least possible amount of squealing" #QotD

"You know, also, as well as I do, what is the great aim of all the governments of the earth: obedience and money. The object [of taxation] is, as the saying goes, to pluck the hen without making it cry out*; but it is the proprietors who cry out, and the government has always preferred to attack them indirectly, because then they do not perceive the harm until after the matter has become law…"
        ~ French economist A.R.J. Turgot, in a 1766 letter to David Hume on the subject of taxation 

* Also translated as: "to so pluck the goose as to procure the largest quantity of feathers with the least possible amount of squealing." For reference to what this means, see Paris this week.

.