Frederic Bastiat Quotes

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• When plunder becomes a way of life, men create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Life, Money, Men

  "Economic Sophisms". Book by Frédéric Bastiat, Second series, 1848.

  175 Copy quote

• When misguided public opinion honors what is despicable and despises what is honorable, punishes virtue and rewards vice, encourages what is harmful and discourages what is useful, applauds falsehood and smothers truth under indifference or insult, a nation turns its back on progress and can be restored only by the terrible lessons of catastrophe.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Political, Honor, Progress

  184 Copy quote

• 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.

  124 Copy quote

• 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.

  153 Copy quote

• 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.

  119 Copy quote

• 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.

  175 Copy quote

• The most urgent necessity is, not that the State should teach, but that it should allow education. All monopolies are detestable, but the worst of all is the monopoly of education.

  Frederic Bastiat

  States, Monopoly, Should

  "What Is Money?". "Frédéric Bastiat, Essays on Political Economy", translated by David A. Wells, bastiat.org. 1877.

  133 Copy quote

• The real cost of the State is the prosperity we do not see, the jobs that don’t exist, the technologies to which we do not have access, the businesses that do not come into existence, and the bright future that is stolen from us. The State has looted us just as surely as a robber who enters our home at night and steals all that we love.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Jobs, Real, Home

  63 Copy quote

• 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

  124 Copy quote

• 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.

  91 Copy quote

• 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.

  114 Copy quote

• It's always tempting to do good at someone else's expense

  Frederic Bastiat

  Expenses, Tempting

  20 Copy quote

• 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.

  59 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

  7 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

  6 Copy quote

• Here I encounter the most popular fallacy of our times. It is not considered sufficient that the law should guarantee to every citizen the free and inoffensive use of his faculties for physical, intellectual and moral self-improvement. Instead, it is demanded that the law should directly extend welfare, education, and morality throughout the nation. This is the seductive lure of socialism. And I repeat: these two uses of the law are in direct contradiction to each other.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Self, Law, Two

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.20, Cosimo, Inc.

  100 Copy quote

• 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

  89 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

  15 Copy quote

• If you wish to prosper, let your customer prosper.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Business, Wish, Customers

  M. FREDERIC BASTIAT (1870). “SOPHISMS OF THE PROTECTIONISTS.”, p.222

  32 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.

  21 Copy quote

• 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.

  102 Copy quote

• Men naturally rebel against the injustice of which they are victims. Thus, when plunder is organized by law for the profit of those who make the law, all the plundered classes try somehow to enter, by peaceful or revolutionary means, into the making of laws. According to their degree of enlightenment, these plundered classes may propose one of two entirely different purposes when they attempt to attain political power: Either they may wish to stop lawful plunder, or they may wish to share in it.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Mean, Men, Law

  Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.9, Filiquarian Publishing, LLC.

  98 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

  12 Copy quote

• The law has been perverted, and the powers of the state have become perverted along with it. The law has not only been turned from its proper function, but made to follow an entirely contrary purpose. The law has become a tool for every kind of greed. Instead of preventing crime, the law itself is guilty of the abuses it is supposed to punish. If this is true, it is a serious matter, and moral duty requires me to call the attention of my fellow-citizens to it.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Law, Greed, Political

  23 Copy quote

• Taking Five and Returning Four is not Giving

  Frederic Bastiat

  Giving, Four, Five

  14 Copy quote

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