Man is never honestly the fatalist, nor even the stoic. He fights his fate, often desperately. He is forever entering bold exceptions to the rulings of the bench of gods. This fighting, no doubt, makes for human progress, for it favors the strong and the brave. It also makes for beauty, for lesser men try to escape from a hopeless and intolerable world by creating a more lovely one of their own.

Any impatient student of mathematics or science or engineering who is irked by having algebraic symbolism thrust upon him should try to get along without it for a week.

Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they translate into their own language, and forthwith it is something entirely different.

Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages.

The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.

Next to being shot at and missed, nothing is really quite as satisfying as an income tax refund.

Look, we play the Star Spangled Banner before every game. You want us to pay income taxes, too?

Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors and miss.

All the taxes paid over a lifetime by the average American are spent by the government in less than a second.

All the big corporations depreciate their possessions, and you can, too, provided you use them for business purposes. For example, if you subscribe to the Wall Street Journal, a business-related newspaper, you can deduct the cost of your house, because, in the words of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger in a landmark 1979 tax decision: "Where else are you going to read the paper? Outside? What if it rains?"