Frederic Bastiat Quotes - Page 4

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• If you wish to prosper, let your customer prosper. When people have learned this lesson, everyone will seek his individual welfare in the general welfare. Then jealousies between man and man, city and city, province and province, nation and nation, will no longer trouble the world.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Men, Cities, People

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• We cannot but be astonished at the ease with which men resign themselves to ignorance about what is most important for them to know; and we may be certain that they are determined to remain invincibly ignorant if they once come to consider it as axiomatic that there are no absolute principles.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Ignorance, Men, Ignorant

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• Which countries contain the most peaceful, the most moral, and the happiest people? Those people are found in the countries where the law least interferes with private affairs; where the government is least felt; where the individual has the greatest scope, and free opinion the greatest influence; where the administrative powers are fewest and simplest; where taxes are lightest and most nearly equal

  Frederic Bastiat

  Country, Government, Law

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.57, Cosimo, Inc.

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

  Frederic Bastiat

  Liberty, Faith In God, Acknowledgement

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• When, then, does plunder stop? It stops when it becomes more painful and more dangerous than labor.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Doe, Painful, Plunder

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

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• ...the statement, "The purpose of the law is to cause justice to reign," is not a rigorously accurate statement. It ought to be stated that the purpose of the law is to prevent injustice from reigning. In fact, it is injustice, instead of justice, that has an existence of its own. Justice is achieved only when injustice is absent.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Law, Justice, Liberty

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.23, Cosimo, Inc.

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• The sort of dependence that results from exchange, i.e., from commercial transactions, is a reciprocal dependence. We cannot be dependent upon a foreigner without his being dependent on us. Now, this is what constitutes the very essence of society. To sever natural interrelations is not to make oneself independent, but to isolate oneself completely.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Independent, Essence, Liberty

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• Trade protection accumulates upon a single point the good which it effects, while the evil inflicted is infused throughout the mass. The one strikes the eye at a first glance, while the other becomes perceptible only to close investigation.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Eye, Evil, Firsts

  Frederic Bastiat (2014). “Sophisms of the Protectionists”, p.18, The Floating Press

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• Finally, is not liberty the restricting of the law only to its rational sphere of organizing the right of the individual to lawful self-defense; of punishing injustice?

  Frederic Bastiat

  Self, Law, Liberty

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

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• The law commit legal plunder by violating liberty and property.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Law, Voting, Liberty

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.25, Cosimo, Inc.

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• No society can exist if respect for the law does not to some extent prevail; but the surest way to have the laws respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality are in contradiction, the citizen finds himself in the cruel dilemma of either losing his moral sense or of losing respect for the law, two evils of which one is as great as the other, and between which it is difficult to choose.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Law, Two, Evil

  "Selected Essays on Political Economy". Book by Frederic Bastiat edited by George B. de Huszar (translated), 1964.

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• 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.

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• Now, legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways. Thus we have an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed profits, minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of labor, free credit, and so on, and so on.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Encouragement, Jobs, School

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.17, Cosimo, Inc.

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• But we assure the socialists that we repudiate only forced organization, not natural organization. We repudiate the forms of association that are forced upon us, not free association. We repudiate forced fraternity, not true fraternity. We repudiate the artificial unity that does nothing more than deprive persons of individual responsibility. We do not repudiate the natural unity of mankind under Providence.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Responsibility, Organization, Unity

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• The balance of trade is an article of faith.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Balance, Imbalance, Trade

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• It is easy to understand why the law is used by the legislator to destroy in varying degrees among the rest of the people, their personal independence by slavery, their liberty by oppression, and their property by plunder. This is done for the benefit of the person who makes the law, and in proportion to the power that he holds.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Law, People, Independence

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

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• No legal plunder: This is the principle of justice.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Law, Justice, Principles

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

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• Repetition may not entertain, but it teaches.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Motivational, May, Repetition

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• In an economy, an act, a habit, an institution, or a law, gives birth not only to an effect, but to a series of effects. Of these effects, the first only is immediate; it manifests itself simultaneously with its cause - it is seen. The others unfold in succession - they are not seen. Now this difference is enormous, for it is often true that when the immediate consequence is favorable, the ultimate consequences are fatal, and the converse.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Law, Differences, Giving

  "That Which Is Seen and That Which Is Not Seen". Book by Frédéric Bastiat, 1850.

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• Nothing is more senseless than to base so many expectations on the state, that is, to assume the existence of collective wisdom and foresight after taking for granted the existence of individual imbecility and improvidence.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Expectations, Assuming, Granted

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• And what is liberty, whose very name makes the heart beat faster and shakes the world? Is it not the union of all liberties - liberty of conscience, of education, of association, of the press, of travel, or labor, or trade?

  Frederic Bastiat

  Heart, Names, Liberty

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

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• By virtue of exchange, one man's prosperity is beneficial to all others.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Men, Liberty, Wealth

  "Harmonies economiques". Book by Frederic Bastiat, 1850.

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• They will come to learn in the end, at their own expense, that it is better to endure competition for rich customers than to be invested with monopoly over impoverished customers.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Competition, Rich, Economics

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

  Frederic Bastiat

  Government, Law, Organization

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• It is indeed a singular thing that people wish to pass laws to nullify the disagreeable consequences that the law of responsibility entails. Will they never realize that they do not eliminate these consequences but merely pass them along to other people? The result is one injustice the more and one moral the less.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Responsibility, Law, People

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