No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a certain degree, but the safest way to make them respected is to make them respectable. When t… - Frédéric Bastiat

When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law.

The safest way to make laws respected is to make them respectable.

In the first place, it would efface from everybody’s
conscience the distinction between justice and injustice.
No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a cer-
tain degree, but the safest way to make them respected is
to make them respectable. When law and morality are in
contradiction to each other, the citizen finds himself in
the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense, or of
losing his respect for the law — two evils of equal magni-
tude, between which it would be difficult to choose.

No society can exist if respect for the law does not to some extent prevail; but the surest way to have laws respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality are in contradiction, the citizen finds himself in the cruel dilemma of either losing his moral sense or of losing his respect for the law, two evils of which one is as great as the other and between which it is difficult to choose.

When law and morality are in contradiction to each other, the citizen finds himself in the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense, or of losing his respect for the law — two evils of equal magnitude, between which it would be difficult to choose.

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.

I can never look at these apparent contradictions between the great laws of nature without a feeling of physical uneasiness which amounts to suffering. Were mankind reduced to the necessity of choosing between two parties, one of whom injures his interest, and the other his conscience, we should have nothing to hope from the future. Happily, this is not the case; and to see Aristus regain his economical superiority, as well as his moral superiority, it is sufficient to understand this consoling maxim, which is no less true from having a paradoxical appearance, “To save is to spend.

Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.