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Frederic Bastiat Quotes

Frederic Bastiat quotes

French Economist June 30, 1801 – December 24, 1850

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Quotes

Frederic Bastiat quote: "The worst thing that can happen to a good cause is, not to be..."
The worst thing that can happen to a good cause is, not to be skillfully attacked, but to be ineptly defended. Frederic Bastiat
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
You compare the nation to a parched piece of land and the tax to a life-giving rain. So be it. But you should also ask yourself where this rain comes from, and whether it is not precisely the tax that draws the moisture from the soil and dries it up. You should also ask yourself further whether the soil receives more of this precious water from the rain than it loses by the evaporation? Frederic Bastiat
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
The mission of law is not to oppress persons and plunder them of their property, even thought the law may be acting in a philanthropic spirit. Its mission is to protect property. Frederic Bastiat
It is not because men have made laws, that personality, liberty, and property exist. On the contrary, it is because personality, liberty, and property exist beforehand, that men make laws. What, then, is law? As I have said elsewhere, it is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense. Frederic Bastiat
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
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
Frederic Bastiat quote: "Government is the great fiction, through which everybody..."
Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else. Frederic Bastiat
Frederic Bastiat quote: "The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone..."
The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else. Frederic Bastiat
Frederic Bastiat quote: "The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to..."
The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else. 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 protecting it--then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Frederic Bastiat
Frederic Bastiat quote: "Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They..."
Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state lives at the expense of everyone. Frederic Bastiat
The politician attempts to remedy the evil by increasing the very thing that caused the evil in the first place: legal plunder. Frederic Bastiat
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

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