Death and taxes (idiom)

"Death and taxes" is a phrase commonly referencing a famous quotation written by American statesman Benjamin Franklin:

Although Franklin is not the progenitor of the phrase, his usage is the most famous, especially in the United States. Earlier versions from the 18th century include a line in Daniel Defoe's The Political History of the Devil (1726), and a quotation from The Cobbler of Preston by Christopher Bullock (1716), which is the earliest known iteration.

Analysis

Seth Lloyd, writing in Nature, grouped the two with the second law of thermodynamics and said of them:

See also

• Irreversible binomial, a pair or group of words used together in fixed order

References