Law Quotes by Frederic Bastiat

Property does not exist because there are laws, but laws exist because there is property.

— Frederic Bastiat

The law commit legal plunder by violating liberty and property.

— Frederic Bastiat

“The safest way to make laws respected is to make them respectable.”

— Frédéric Bastiat

No legal plunder: This is the principle of justice.

— Frederic Bastiat

Law cannot organize labor and industry without organizing injustice.

— Frederic Bastiat

When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his…

— Frederic Bastiat

The law has been perverted through the influence of two very different causes-naked greed and misconceived philanthropy.

— Frederic Bastiat

It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into…

— Frederic Bastiat

What, then is law [government]? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.

— Frederic Bastiat

The mission of law is not to oppress persons and plunder them of their property, even thought the law may be acting…

— Frederic Bastiat

The law can be an instrument of equalization only as it takes from some persons and gives to other persons. When the…

— Frederic Bastiat

Countries which enjoy the highest level of peace, happiness and prosperity are the ones where the law least interfered with private affairs.

— Frederic Bastiat

“The law has been perverted through the influence of two very different causes—bare egotism and false philanthropy.”

— Frédéric Bastiat

The law is the collective organization of the individual's right to lawful defense of his life, liberty and property. When it is…

— Frederic Bastiat

But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to…

— Frederic Bastiat

Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Sometimes the law places the whole apparatus of judges, police, prisons and gendarmes…

— Frederic Bastiat

Which countries contain the most peaceful, the most moral, and the happiest people? Those people are found in the countries where the…

— Frederic Bastiat

...the statement, "The purpose of the law is to cause justice to reign," is not a rigorously accurate statement. It ought to…

— Frederic Bastiat

Law is justice. And it is under the law of justice - under the reign of right; under the influence of liberty,…

— Frederic Bastiat

There is in all of a strong disposition to believe that anything lawful is also legitimate. This belief is so widespread that…

— Frederic Bastiat

In fact, if law were restricted to protecting all persons, all liberties, and all properties; if law were nothing more than the…

— Frederic Bastiat

“The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defence; it is the substitution of collective for individual forces, for…

— Frédéric Bastiat

As proof of this statement, consider this question: Have the people ever been known to rise against the Court of Appeals, or…

— Frederic Bastiat

“The person who profits from this law will complain bitterly, defending his acquired rights . He will claim that the state is…

— Frédéric Bastiat

It is not true that the legislator has absolute power over our persons and property, since they pre-exist, and his work is…

— Frederic Bastiat

“In the first place, it would efface from everybody’s conscience the distinction between justice and injustice. No society can exist unless the…

— Frédéric Bastiat

Here I encounter the most popular fallacy of our times. It is not considered sufficient that the law should guarantee to every…

— Frederic Bastiat

“The law perverted! The law — and, in its wake, all the collective forces of the nation — the law, I say,…

— Frédéric Bastiat

“I do not think that illegal plunder, such as theft or swindling — which the penal code defines, anticipates, and punishes —…

— Frédéric Bastiat

“Which countries contain the most peaceful, the most moral, and the happiest people? Those people are found in the countries where the…

— Frédéric Bastiat

A lawyer's primer: If you don't have the law, you argue the facts; if you don't have the facts, you argue the…

— Frederic Bastiat

“Legal plunder has two roots: one of them, as we have already seen, is in human egotism; the other is in false…

— Frédéric Bastiat

Finally, is not liberty the restricting of the law only to its rational sphere of organizing the right of the individual to…

— Frederic Bastiat

Either fraternity is spontaneous, or it does not exist. To decree it is to annihilate it. The law can indeed force men…

— Frederic Bastiat

“What, then, is law? As I have said elsewhere, it is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defence.”

— Frédéric Bastiat

“I cannot possibly understand how fraternity can be legally enforced without liberty being legally destroyed...”

— Frédéric Bastiat

If philanthropy is not voluntary, it destroys liberty and justice. The law can give nothing that has not first been taken from…

— Frederic Bastiat

Law is justice. In this proposition a simple and enduring government can be conceived. And I defy anyone to say how even…

— Frederic Bastiat

It is indeed a singular thing that people wish to pass laws to nullify the disagreeable consequences that the law of responsibility…

— Frederic Bastiat

Try to imagine a system of labor imposed by force that is not a violation of liberty; a transfer of wealth imposed…

— Frederic Bastiat