Frédéric Bastiat Quotes

LA VIDA ES UN DON DE DIOS
De Dios nos viene el don que, para nosotros, los contiene a todos: La vida. – la vida física, intelectual y moral.
Empero, la vida no se mantiene por sí misma. Aquel que nos la ha dado, ha dejado a cargo nuestro el cuidado de mantenerla, desarrollarla y perfeccionarla.

What, then, is law? As I have said elsewhere, it is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defence.

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.

When two workmen run after one master, wages fall; they rise when two masters run after one workman.

"In our plan, the state has only to pass labor laws (nothing else?) by means of which industrial progress can and must proceed in complete liberty. The state merely places society on an incline (that is all?). Then society will slide down this incline by the mere force of things, and by the natural workings of the established mechanism." But what is this incline that is indicated by Mr. Louis Blanc? Does it not lead to an abyss? (No, it leads to happiness.) If this is true, then why does not society go there of its own choice? (Because society does not know what it wants; it must be propelled.) What is to propel it? (Power.) And who is to supply the impulse for this power? (Why, the inventor of the machine — in this instance, Mr. Louis Blanc.)

Ninguna sociedad puede existir, si no impera en algún grado el respeto a las leyes; pero es el caso que lo que da más seguridad para que sean respetadas las leyes, es que sean respetables. Cuando la ley y la moral se encuentran en contradicción, el ciudadano se encuentra en la cruel disyuntiva de perder la noción de lo moral o de perder el respeto a la ley, dos desgracias tan grandes una como la otra y entre las cuales es difícil elegir.

Yes, as long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true mission, that it may violate property instead of securing it, everybody will be wanting to manufacture law, either to defend himself against plunder, or to organize it for his own profit.

La estereotipación del pensamiento conforta y consuela. El extremista afán de lucir como hombre moderado, arbitrador de divergencias, como personalidad agradable a toda costa, cohíbe e inhibe la curiosidad mental; hacerse solidario de la opinión pública da sensación de seguridad.

Uma “ditadura” não precisa envolver um ditador efetivo. Tudo o que era necessário, dizia Bastiat, eram “as leis”, promulgadas por um Congresso ou um Parlamento, que produzissem o mesmo efeito: conformidade forçada.

Away, then, with quacks and organizers! Away with their rings, chains, hooks, and pincers! Away with their artificial systems! Away with the whims of governmental administrators, their socialized projects, their centralization, their tariffs, their government schools, their state religions, their free credit, their bank monopolies, their regulations, their restrictions, their equalization by taxation, and their pious moralizations!

Law is common force organized to prevent injustice — in short, Law is Justice. 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.

Indeed, a more astounding fact, in the heart of society, cannot be conceived than this: That law should have become an instrument of injustice.

For when a farmer borrows fifty francs to buy a plow, it is not actually the fifty francs that is lent to him; it is the plow.
And when a merchant borrows twenty thousand francs to buy a house, it is not the twenty thousand francs he owes; it is the house.

at whatever point of the scientific horizon I start from, I invariably come to the same thing — the solution of the social problem is in liberty.

"You say: "There are persons who lack education" and you turn to the law. But the law is not, in itself, a torch of learning which shines its light abroad. The law extends over a society where some persons have knowledge and others do not; where some citizens need to learn, and others can teach. In this matter of education, the law has only two alternatives: It can permit this transaction of teaching-and-learning to operate freely and without the use of force, or it can force human wills in this matter by taking from some of them enough to pay the teachers who are appointed by government to instruct others, without charge. But in the second case, the law commits legal plunder by violating liberty and property."