Frédéric Bastiat Quotes

the common force cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, the liberty, or the property of individuals or of classes.

But when James Goodfellow hands over a hundred sous to a government official to receive no service for it or even to be subjected to inconveniences, it is as if he were to give his money to a thief.

In fact, it is not justice which has an existence of its own, it is injustice. The one results from the absence of the other.

Classical conventionalism shows us everywhere, behind passive society, a hidden power, under the names of Law, or Legislator (or, by a mode of expression which refers to some person or persons of undisputed weight and authority, but not named), which moves, animates, enriches, and regenerates mankind.

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.

Mr. Louis Blanc also tells us that competition leads to monopoly. And by the same reasoning, he thus informs us that low prices lead to high prices; that competition drives production to destructive activity; that competition drains away the sources of purchasing power; that competition forces an increase in production while, at the same time, it forces a decrease in consumption. From this, it follows that free people produce for the sake of not consuming; that liberty means oppression and madness among the people; and that Mr. Louis Blanc absolutely must attend to it.

Legal plunder has two roots: one of them, as we have already seen, is in human greed; the other is in misconceived philanthropy.

One thing is overlooked, which is this: That the kind of dependence that results from exchange, from commercial transactions, is a reciprocal dependence. We cannot be dependent on the foreigner without the foreigner being dependent on us. Now, this is the very essence of society. To break up natural relations is not to place ourselves in a state of independence, but in a state of isolation.

Es esta una época en la que, bajo la influencia de tales enseñanzas, que son el fondo de la educación clásica, cada uno ha querido situarse fuera y por encima de la humanidad, para arreglarla, organizarla e instituirla a su gusto.

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.

Esta funesta inclinación nace de la constitución misma del hombre, de ese sentimiento primitivo, universal, invencible, que lo empuja hacia el bienestar y lo hace huir de la incomodidad, el esfuerzo y el dolor.

Thus there is not a grievance in the nation for which the government does not voluntarily make itself responsible. Is it surprising, then, that every failure increases the threat of another revolution in France? And what remedy is proposed for this? To extend indefinitely the domain of the law; that is, the responsibility of government.

Man does not live upon nominal values, but upon real products, and the more products there are, whatever be their price, the richer he is.

Ninguna sociedad puede existir si el respeto a las Leyes no reina en algún grado; pero lo más seguro, para que las leyes sean respetadas, es que sean respetables. Cuando la Ley y la Moral entran en contradicción, el ciudadano se encuentra en la cruel disyuntiva de perder la noción de Moral o de perder el respeto por la Ley, dos desgracias tan grandes la una como la otra, y entre las cuales es difícil elegir.

In fact, if law were restricted to protecting all persons, all liberties, and all properties; if law were nothing more than the organized combination of the individual's right to self defense; if law were the obstacle, the check, the punisher of all oppression and plunder — is it likely that we citizens would then argue much about the extent of the franchise?