English Explanatory Dictionary

nothing is certain but death and taxes

English dictionary entry

Meanings

proverb
  1. Nothing in life is certain nor can be taken for granted, except (humorously) that one will die one day and that one is required to pay taxes.

Word forms

nothing is certain but death and taxes

Etymology

Variant of a 1789 quotation from Benjamin Franklin, used in a letter to Jean-Baptiste Le Roy.

This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.
Back to search All on N Russian dictionary Dahl dictionary