Frederic Bastiat Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• 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

  36 Copy quote

• 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.

  72 Copy quote

• Now since man is naturally inclined to avoid pain - and since labor is pain in itself - it follows that men will resort to plunder whenever plunder is easier than work. History shows this quite clearly. And under these conditions, neither religion nor morality can stop it. When, then, does plunder stop? It stops when it becomes more painful and more dangerous than labor.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Pain, Men, Doe

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.9, Cosimo, Inc.

  50 Copy quote

• Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Thinking, Judging, Humanity

  "La Loi (The Law)". Book by Frederic Bastiat, 1850.

  23 Copy quote

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

  Frederic Bastiat

  Country, Law, Levels

  8 Copy quote

• The law can be an instrument of equalization only as it takes from some persons and gives to other persons. When the law does this, it is an instrument of plunder.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Law, Giving, Doe

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.28, Filiquarian Publishing, LLC.

  14 Copy quote

• Legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways; hence, there are an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, bonuses, subsidies, incentives, the progressive income tax, free education, the right to employment, the right to profit, the right to wages, the right to relief, the right to the tools of production, interest free credit, etc., etc. And it the aggregate of all these plans, in respect to what they have in common, legal plunder, that goes under the name of socialism.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Names, Free Education, Numbers

  27 Copy quote

• The mission of the law is not to oppress persons and plunder them of their property, even though the law may be acting in a philanthropic spirit. Its purpose is to protect persons and property.... If you exceed this proper limit -- if you attempt to make the law religious, fraternal, equalizing, philanthropic, industrial, or artistic -- you will then be lost in uncharted territory, in vagueness and uncertainty, in a forced utopia or, even worse, in a multitude of utopias, each striving to seize the law and impose it on you.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Religious, Law, Acting

  27 Copy quote

• Trade barriers constitute isolation; isolation gives rise to hatred, hatred to war, and war to invasion.

  Frederic Bastiat

  War, Giving, Hatred

  33 Copy quote

• People are beginning to realize that the apparatus of government is costly. But what they do not know is that the burden falls inevitably on them.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Fall, Government, People

  13 Copy quote

• The politician attempts to remedy the evil by increasing the very thing that caused the evil in the first place: legal plunder.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Evil, Liberty, Libertarian

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.27, Filiquarian Publishing, LLC.

  18 Copy quote

• Legal plunder has two roots: One, as we have just seen, is in human selfishness; the other is in false philanthropy.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Two, Roots, Justice

  13 Copy quote

• Taking Five and Returning Four is not Giving

  Frederic Bastiat

  Giving, Four, Five

  14 Copy quote

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

  Frederic Bastiat

  Inspirational, Humor, Government

  19 Copy quote

• There is in all of a strong disposition to believe that anything lawful is also legitimate. This belief is so widespread that many persons have erroneously held that things are "just" because the law makes them so.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Strong, Believe, Law

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

  28 Copy quote

• It is not true that the legislator has absolute power over our persons and property. The existence of persons and property preceded the existence of the legislator, and his function is only to guarantee their safety.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Safety, Guarantees, Function

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.64, Filiquarian Publishing, LLC.

  19 Copy quote

• If every person has the right to defend - even by force - his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus, since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force - for the same reason - cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Men, Rights, Support

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  51 Copy quote

• 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.

  51 Copy quote

• The law is the collective organization of the individual's right to lawful defense of his life, liberty and property. When it is used for anything else, no matter how noble the cause, it becomes perverted and justice is weakened. Thus, the law has become perverted by stupid greed and false philanthropy.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Stupid, Law, Organization

  16 Copy quote

• They would be the shepherds over us, their sheep. Certainly such an arrangement presupposes that they are naturally superior to the rest of us. And certainly we are fully justified in demanding from the legislators and organizers proof of this natural superiority.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Sheep, Shepherds, Would Be

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.60, Filiquarian Publishing, LLC.

  4 Copy quote

• I find it hard to understand why those who demand Unitary Education by the State do not also demand a Unitary Press by the State... Either the State is infallible, in which case we could not do better than to submit to it the entire domain of intelligent thought, or it is not, in which case it is no more rational to hand over education to it than the press.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Intelligent, Hands, Political

  14 Copy quote

• Society is composed of men, and every man is a FREE agent. Since man is free, he can choose; since he can choose, he can err; since he can err, he can suffer. I go further: He must err and he must suffer; for his starting point is ignorance, and in his ignorance he sees before him an infinite number of unknown roads, all of which save one lead to error.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Ignorance, Men, Numbers

  12 Copy quote

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

  Frederic Bastiat

  Law, Two, Greed

  36 Copy quote

• And this is what has taken place. The delusion of the day is to enrich all classes at the expense of each other; it is to generalize plunder under pretense of organizing it.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Taken, Class, Plunder

  Frederic Bastiat (2017). “The Law”, p.15, Lulu.com

  19 Copy quote

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