The nature of law is to maintain justice. This is so much the case that, in the minds of the people, law and justice are one and the same thing. Ther… - Frédéric Bastiat

I wish someone would offer a prize — not of a hundred francs, but of a million, with crowns, medals and ribbons — for a good, simple and intelligible definition of the word “Government.” What an immense service it would confer on society!

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.

As soon as the injured classes have recovered their political rights, their first thought is not to abolish plunder (this would suppose them to possess enlightenment, which they cannot have), but to organize against the other classes, and to their own detriment, a system of reprisals — as if it was necessary, before the reign of justice arrives, that all should undergo a cruel retribution — some for their iniquity and some for their ignorance.