Governed uncommonly well

The common people there (in Rome) know a great deal; they even have the effrontery to complain if they are not properly governed, and to take hold and help conduct the government themselves;

if they had laws like ours, which give one dollar of every three a crop produces to the government for taxes, they would have that law altered:

instead of paying thirty-three dollars in taxes, out of every one hundred they receive, they complain if they have to pay seven.

They are curious people. They do not know when they are well off.

Source: The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain

Related: The purposes of government and taxation