Frederic Bastiat Quotes About Liberty

Quotes about: Liberty

• If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?

  Frederic Bastiat

  Believe, Race, People

  "The Law". Book by Frederic Bastiat, 1850.

• Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Men, Law, Liberty

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.6, Cosimo, Inc.

• Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Sometimes the law places the whole apparatus of judges, police, prisons and gendarmes at the service of the plunderers, and treats the victim - when he defends himself - as a criminal.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Law, Judging, Police

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.16, Cosimo, Inc.

• Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all . . . . It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain

  Frederic Bastiat

  Spring, Ideas, Libertarian Party

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.26, Cosimo, Inc.

• Is not liberty the destruction of all despotism - including, of course, legal despotism?

  Frederic Bastiat

  Liberty, Destruction, Despotism

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.41, Cosimo, Inc.

• The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Government, Political, Democracy

  "The Libertarian Reader: Classic and Contemporary Writings from Lao Tzu to". Book by David Boaz, 1997.

• The worst thing that can happen to a good cause is not to be skillfully attacked, but to be ineptly defended.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Liberty, Causes, Worst

  "Economic sophisms". Book by Frederic Bastiat, 1845.

• Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state wants to live at the expense of everyone.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Government, Second Amendment, Liberty

• We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Liberty, Want, Libertarian

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.30, Filiquarian Publishing, LLC.

• In short, is not liberty the freedom of every person to make full use of his faculties, so long as he does not harm other persons while doing so?

  Frederic Bastiat

  Long, Liberty, Doe

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.41, Cosimo, Inc.

• Property, the right to enjoy the fruits of one's labor, the right to work, to develop, to exercise one's faculties, according to one's own understanding, without the state intervening otherwise than by its protective action; this is what is meant by liberty

  Frederic Bastiat

  Exercise, Understanding, Liberty

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

  Frederic Bastiat

  Taken, Law, Giving

• It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Law, Government, Evil

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.10, Cosimo, Inc.

• Each of us has a natural right, from God, to defend his person, his liberty, and his property.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Liberty, Economic, Economy

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.6, Cosimo, Inc.

• And now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty; for liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and His works

  Frederic Bastiat

  Should Have, Trying, Liberty

• Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Inspirational, Humor, Government

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

  Frederic Bastiat

  Thinking, People, Liberty

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

  Frederic Bastiat

  Law, Government, Liberty

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.10, Filiquarian Publishing, LLC.

• The plans differ; the planners are all alike.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Liberty, Libertarian, Economic

• But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Law, Government, Giving

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.18, Filiquarian Publishing, LLC.

• Liberty is an acknowledgement of faith in God and his works.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Liberty, Faith In God, Acknowledgement

• It is not true that the legislator has absolute power over our persons and property, since they pre-exist, and his work is only to secure them from injury. It is not true that the mission of the law is to regulate our consciences, our ideas, our will, our education, our sentiments, our works, our exchanges, our gifts, our enjoyments. Its mission is to prevent the rights of one from interfering with those of another, in any one of these things.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Rights, Law, Ideas

  Frederic Bastiat (2017). “The Law”, p.36, Lulu.com

• No legal plunder: This is the principle of justice, peace, order, stability, harmony, and logic. Until the day of my death, I shall proclaim this principle with all the force of my lungs (which alas! is all too inadequate).

  Frederic Bastiat

  Order, Justice, Liberty

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.19, Cosimo, Inc.

• Life, faculties, production-in other words, individuality, liberty, property-this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Men, Leader, Political

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.3, Filiquarian Publishing, LLC.

• When goods do not cross borders, soldiers will.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Soldier, Liberty, Borders

Page 1 of 2

← Prev

1

2

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin