Quotes About Society

We now observe this fatal idea: The people who, during the election, were so wise, so moral, and so perfect, now have no tendencies whatever; or if they have any, they are tendencies that lead downward into degradation.

To take by violence is not to produce, but to destroy. Truly, if taking by violence was producing, this country of ours would be a little richer than she is.

When it is a question of taxes, gentlemen, prove their usefulness by reasons with some foundation, but not with that lamentable assertion: "Public spending keeps the working class alive." It makes the mistake of covering up a fact that it is essential to know: namely, that public spending is always a substitute for private spending, and that consequently it may well support one worker in place of another but adds nothing to the lot of the working class taken as a whole.

It ought to be said, the aim of the law is to prevent injustice from reigning. In fact, it is not justice that has an existence of its own, it is injustice. The one results from the absence of the other.

Hence it follows that man in an isolated state cannot subsist, whilst in the social state his most imperious wants give place to desires of a higher order, and continue to do so in an ascending career of progress and improvement to which it is impossible to set limits.

There are people who think that plunder loses all its immorality as soon as it becomes legal.

It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder. What are the consequences of such a perversion? ... In the first place, it erases from everyone's conscience the distinction between justice and injustice...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.

Bastiat was a nineteenth century French political economist who dedicated the last years of his short life to proving that government by its nature possesses neither the moral authority to intervene in our freedom nor the practical ability to create prosperity through its intervention.

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.

It is no wonder that the writers of the nineteenth century look upon society as an artificial creation of the legislator's genius. This idea -- the fruit of classical education -- has taken possession of all the intellectuals and famous writers of our country. To these intellectuals and writers, the relationship between persons and the legislator appears to be the same as the relationship between the clay and the potter.

The law perverted! The law—and, in its wake, all the collective forces of the nation—the law, I say, not only diverted from its proper direction, but made to pursue one entirely contrary! The law become the tool of every kind of avarice, instead of being its check! The law guilty of that very iniquity which it was its mission to punish! Truly, this is a serious fact, if it exists, and one to which I feel bound to call the attention of my fellow citizens.

But if men are, on the one hand, irresistibly impelled towards what is for their profit, and if, on the other, they resist instinctively what is hurtful, we are forced to conclude that each nation carries in its bosom a natural force of expansion, and a not less natural force of resistance, which forces are equally injurious to all other nations; or, in other words, that antagonism and war are the natural state of human society.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

Law is organized Justice. Now