Frederic Bastiat

There are people who think that plunder loses all its immorality as soon as it becomes legal. Personally, I cannot imagine a…

— Frederic Bastiat

Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty,…

— Frederic Bastiat

If everyone enjoyed the unrestricted use of his faculties and the free disposition of the fruits of his labor, social progress would…

— 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

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

— Frederic Bastiat

And what is liberty, whose very name makes the heart beat faster and shakes the world? Is it not the union of…

— Frederic Bastiat

“at whatever point of the scientific horizon I start from, I invariably come to the same thing—the solution of the social problem…

— Frédéric 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

We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion.…

— Frederic Bastiat

You compare the nation to a parched piece of land and the tax to a life-giving rain. So be it. But you…

— Frederic Bastiat

Now since man is naturally inclined to avoid pain - and since labor is pain in itself - it follows that men…

— 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

It must be admitted that the tendency of the human race toward liberty is largely thwarted, especially in France. This is greatly…

— Frederic Bastiat

But we assure the socialists that we repudiate only forced organization, not natural organization. We repudiate the forms of association that are…

— Frederic 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

There is not a tool, an implement, or a machine that has not resulted in a decrease in the contribution of human…

— Frederic Bastiat

People are beginning to realize that the apparatus of government is costly. But what they do not know is that the burden…

— Frederic Bastiat

Trade protection accumulates upon a single point the good which it effects, while the evil inflicted is infused throughout the mass. The…

— Frederic Bastiat

“the common force cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, the liberty, or the property of individuals or of classes. For”

— Frédéric 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

It is not true that the legislator has absolute power over our persons and property. The existence of persons and property preceded…

— Frederic Bastiat

“Another effect of this deplorable perversion of the law is, that it gives to human passions and to political struggles, and, in…

— Frédéric Bastiat

“It would be impossible, therefore, to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this—the conversion of the law…

— Frédéric Bastiat

“Is it to be supposed that Nature has not bestowed upon me sufficient imagination to invent a Utopia too? Is it for…

— Frédéric Bastiat

This question of legal plunder must be settled once and for all, and there are only three ways to settle it: (1)…

— Frederic Bastiat

The most urgent necessity is, not that the State should teach, but that it should allow education. All monopolies are detestable, but…

— Frederic Bastiat

“In fact, it is not justice which has an existence of its own, it is injustice. The one results from the absence…

— Frédéric Bastiat

“We must admit that our opponents in this argument have a marked advantage over us. They need only a few words to…

— Frédéric 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

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

— Frederic Bastiat

“If you suggest a doubt as to the morality of these institutions, it is said directly—"You are a dangerous innovator, a utopian,…

— Frédéric Bastiat

“But yet he may live and enjoy, by seizing and appropriating the productions of the faculties of his fellow men. This is…

— Frédéric Bastiat

“according to Montesquieu, the persons, the liberties, the property, mankind itself, are nothing but materials to exercise the sagacity of lawgivers." Rousseau.”

— Frédéric Bastiat

“You must see, then, that the socialist democrats cannot in conscience allow men any liberty, because, by their own nature, they tend…

— Frédéric Bastiat

And now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they…

— Frederic Bastiat

When misguided public opinion honors what is despicable and despises what is honorable, punishes virtue and rewards vice, encourages what is harmful…

— Frederic Bastiat

“Well, I ask the impartial reader, is it not childishness, and more than that, dangerous childishness? Is it not inevitable that we…

— Frédéric Bastiat

They would be the shepherds over us, their sheep. Certainly such an arrangement presupposes that they are naturally superior to the rest…

— Frederic Bastiat

As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose--that it may violate property instead of…

— Frederic Bastiat

“When law and morality are in contradiction to each other, the citizen finds himself in the cruel alternative of either losing his…

— Frédéric Bastiat