It is all in vain; you cannot give money to some members of the community but by taking it from others. If you desire to ruin the tax-payer, you may … - Frédéric Bastiat

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It is all in vain; you cannot give money to some members of the community but by taking it from others. If you desire to ruin the tax-payer, you may do so. But at least do not banter him by saying: “In order to compensate your losses, I take from you again as much as I have taken from you already.

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About Frédéric Bastiat

Frédéric Bastiat (30 June 1801 – 24 December 1850) was an early free-market economist and classical liberal French author.

Biography information from Wikiquote

Also Known As

Alternative Names: Claude Frédéric Bastiat Frederic Bastiat
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Additional quotes by Frédéric Bastiat

When a portion of wealth passes out of the hands of him who has acquired it, without his consent, and without compensation, to him who has not created it, whether by force or by artifice, I say that property is violated, that plunder is perpetrated.

One of the strangest phenomena of our time, and one that will probably be a matter of astonishment to our descendants, is the doctrine which is founded upon this triple hypothesis: the radical passiveness of mankind — the omnipotence of the law — the infallibility of the legislator: this is the sacred symbol of the party that proclaims itself exclusively democratic.

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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.

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