Frédéric Bastiat Quotes

To rob the public, it is necessary to deceive them. To deceive them, it is necessary to persuade them that they are robbed for their own advantage, and to induce them to accept in exchange for their property, imaginary services, and often worse.

"If you suggest a doubt as to the morality of these institutions, it is said directly — "You are a dangerous innovator, a utopian, a theorist, a despiser of the laws; you would shake the basis upon which society rests.

Government is that great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.

At all events, let no one claim that because an abuse cannot be done away with, without inconvenience to those who profit by it, what has been suffered to exist for a time should be allowed to exist forever.

"If you suggest a doubt as to the morality of these institutions, it is said directly — "You are a dangerous innovator, a utopian, a theorist, a despiser of the laws; you would shake the basis upon which society rests." If"

What does it profit us that a great man, even a God, should promulgate moral laws, if the minds of men, steeped in error, will constantly mistake vice for virtue, and virtue for vice?

Once for all: liberty consists not only in the right granted, but in the power given to man to exercise, to develop his faculties under the empire of justice, and under the protection of the law.

The law has been perverted by the influence of two entirely different causes: stupid greed and false philanthropy. Let us speak of the first.

men will resort to plunder whenever plunder is easier than work.

Just as in money we see the sign of wealth, we see also in paper money the sign of money; and thence conclude that there is a very easy and simple method of procuring for everybody the pleasures of fortune.

The State is also subject to the law of Malthus. It is continually living beyond its means, it increases in proportion to its means, and draws its support solely from the substance of the people. Woe to the people who are incapable of limiting the sphere of action of the State.

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.

There are people who think that plunder loses all its immorality as soon as it becomes legal. Personally, I cannot imagine a more alarming situation.

As classes espoliadas acabarão por entender como entrar no jogo político e espoliar seus semelhantes. A legislação jamais será guiada por quaisquer princípios de justiça, mas apenas pela força política bruta.

Now since man is naturally inclined to avoid pain — and since labor is pain in itself — it follows that men will resort to plunder whenever plunder is easier than work.