[Ads-l] Jean-Baptiste Colbert Quotation

[Shapiro, Fred]

In the Yale Book of Quotations, I included the quotation by Jean-Baptiste Colbert beginning (in translation) "The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to procure ... "  I cited this from a 1919 secondary source.


I am told by a correspondent that occurrences of this quotation in Google Books go back at least to 1888.  Can anyone help me push it back further, in either French or English?


Fred Shapiro


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