Life Is a Gift from God. We hold from God the gift which includes all others. This gift is life — physical, intellectual, and moral life. But life c… - Frédéric Bastiat

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.

We hold from God the gift which, as far as we are concerned, contains all others, Life — physical, intellectual, and moral life.

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.

We hold from God the gift that, as far as we are concerned, contains all others, Life — physical, intellectual, and moral life.

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. Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.

if the fatal principle should come to be introduced, that, under pretense of organization, regulation, protection, or encouragement, the law may take from one party in order to give to another, help itself to the wealth acquired by all the classes that it may increase that of one class, whether that of the agriculturists, the manufacturers, the ship owners, or artists and comedians; then certainly, in this case, there is no class which may not try, and with reason, to place its hand upon the law, that would not demand with fury its right of election and eligibility, and that would overturn society rather than not obtain it. Even beggars and vagabonds will prove to you that they have an incontestable title to it.

Do not the legislators and their agents form a part of the human race? Do they consider that they are composed of different materials from the rest of mankind?

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