Quotes from Frederic Bastiat

it is well known that large numbers of poor people attribute their poverty to what they call the tyranny of capital; meaning thereby the unwillingness of the owners of capital to allow others to use it without security for its safe return and compensation for its use.

We should not see those great displacements of capital, of labor, and of population, that legislative measures occasion; displacements that render so uncertain and precarious the very sources of existence, and thus enlarge to such an extent the responsibility of Governments.

at whatever point of the scientific horizon I start from, I invariably come to the same thing—the solution of the social problem is in liberty. And

Allow the State, which is the same thing as force, to interfere on one side or the other, and from that moment all the means of evaluation will be complicated and entangled, instead of becoming clear. It ought to be the part of the State to prevent, and, above all, to repress artifice and fraud; that is, to secure liberty, and not to violate it.

The separation of employments, the division of labor, which results from the faculty of exchanging, causes each man, instead of struggling on his own account to overcome all the obstacles that surround him, to combat only one of them; he overcomes that one not for himself but for his fellow men, who in turn render him the same service.

And now, after having vainly inflicted upon the social body so many systems, let them end where they ought to have begun—reject all systems, and make trial of liberty—of liberty, which is an act of faith in God and in His work.

Man can only derive life and enjoyment from a perpetual search and appropriation; that is, from a perpetual application of his faculties to objects, or from labor. This is the origin of property. But also he may live and enjoy, by seizing and appropriating the productions of the faculties of his fellow men. This is the origin of plunder.

One thing is overlooked, which is this: That the kind of dependence that results from exchange, from commercial transactions, is a reciprocal dependence. We cannot be dependent on the foreigner without the foreigner being dependent on us. Now, this is the very essence of society. To break up natural relations is not to place ourselves in a state of independence, but in a state of isolation.

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.

Es esta una época en la que, bajo la influencia de tales enseñanzas, que son el fondo de la educación clásica, cada uno ha querido situarse fuera y por encima de la humanidad, para arreglarla, organizarla e instituirla a su gusto.

aquellos que quieren explotar, sin riesgo y sin escrúpulos, la Persona, la Libertad o la Propiedad de otros; ha convertido la Expoliación en Derecho, para protegerla, y la legítima defensa en crimen, para castigarla.

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.

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.

Yes, as long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true mission, that it may violate property instead of securing it, 12everybody will be wanting to manufacture law

La Ley se ha pervertido bajo la influencia de dos causas bien diferentes: el egoísmo falto de inteligencia y la falsa filantropía.

Ninguna sociedad puede existir si el respeto a las Leyes no reina en algún grado; pero lo más seguro, para que las leyes sean respetadas, es que sean respetables. Cuando la Ley y la Moral entran en contradicción, el ciudadano se encuentra en la cruel disyuntiva de perder la noción de Moral o de perder el respeto por la Ley, dos desgracias tan grandes la una como la otra, y entre las cuales es difícil elegir.

At all events, let no one claim that because an abuse cannot be done away with, without inconvenience to those who profit by it, what has been suffered to exist for a time should be allowed to exist forever.

According to their degree of enlightenment, these plundered classes may propose one of two entirely different purposes when they attempt to attain political power: Either they may wish to stop lawful plunder, or they may wish to share in it. Woe to the nation when this latter purpose prevails

La gran desventura de Francia es la preferencia de la igualdad por encima de la libertad.   Alexis de Tocqueville.

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.

Indeed, a more astounding fact, in the heart of society, cannot be conceived than this: That law should have become an instrument of injustice.

Money only appears for the sake of facilitating the arrangements between the parties.

You must see, then, that the socialist democrats cannot in conscience allow men any liberty, because, by their own nature, they tend in every instance to all kinds of degradation and demoralization. We

no one borrows money for the sake of the money itself; money is only the medium by which to obtain possession of products.