Quotes from Frederic Bastiat

In fact, if law were restricted to protecting all persons, all liberties, and all properties; if law were nothing more than the organized combination of the individual's right to self defense; if law were the obstacle, the check, the punisher of all oppression and plunder -- is it likely that we citizens would then argue much about the extent of the franchise?

The true and equitable law of humanity is the free exchange of service for service. Spoliation consists in destroying by force or by trickery the freedom of exchange, in order to receive a service without rendering one. Forcible spoliation is exercised thus: Wait till a man has produced something; then take it away from him by violence. It is solemnly condemned in the Ten Commandments: Thou shalt not steal.

the price of labor, like the price of everything else, is governed by the relation of supply to demand.

The law has been perverted through the influence of two very different causes—bare egotism and false philanthropy.

In fact, it is not justice which has an existence of its own, it is injustice. The one results from the absence of the other.

But yet he may live and enjoy, by seizing and appropriating the productions of the faculties of his fellow men. This is the origin of plunder. Now

The truth, in plain terms, is this: That men consume cloth and corn by fire or by using them, and that the effect is the same as regards money, but not as regards wealth, for it is precisely in the use of commodities that wealth or material prosperity consists.

Thus there is not a grievance in the nation for which the government does not voluntarily make itself responsible. Is it surprising, then, that every failure increases the threat of another revolution in France? And what remedy is proposed for this? To extend indefinitely the domain of the law; that is, the responsibility of government.

But the law is made, generally, by one man, or by one class of men. And as law cannot exist without the sanction and the support of a preponderating force, it must finally place this force in the hands of those who legislate. This

monopoly, like every other system of injustice, carries in itself its own punishment.

You say, "Here are men who are wanting in morality or religion," and you apply to the law; but law is force, and need I say how far it is a violent and absurd enterprise to introduce force in these matters?

Man does not live upon nominal values, but upon real products, and the more products there are, whatever be their price, the richer he is.

Existence, faculties, assimilation—in other words, personality, liberty, property—this is man.

I assure that I should breathe my last without pain and almost with joy if I were certain of leaving to the friends who love me, not poignant regrets, but a gentle, affectionate, somewhat melancholy remembrance of me.

Se su di un confine non passano le merci, vi passeranno i cannoni.

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

Another effect of this deplorable perversion of the law is, that it gives to human passions and to political struggles, and, in general, to politics, properly so called, an exaggerated preponderance. I

For what are our faculties, but the extension of our personality? and what is property, but an extension of our faculties?

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.

It is worth our while to pay a little attention to the extent of genius required by these legislators, that we may see how, by confounding all the virtues, they showed their wisdom to the world.

the decisive proof that the people are dupes is when the priest is rich and powerful.

Despoilers obey the Malthusian law; they multiply with the means of existence, and the means of existence of knaves is the credulity of their dupes.

La gran desventura de Francia es la preferencia de la igualdad por encima de la libertad. Alexis de Tocqueville. LA LEY LA Ley ¡pervertida!

Be responsible for ourselves. Look to the State for nothing beyond law and order. Count on it for no wealth, no enlightenment. No more holding it responsible for our faults, our negligence, our improvidence. Count only on ourselves for our subsistence, our physical, intellectual, and moral progress!