Quote

Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state wants to live at the expense of everyone.

Frederic Bastiat

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Frederic Bastiat
Age: 49 †
Born: 1801
Born: June 30
Died: 1850
Died: December 24
Economist
Essayist
Magistrate
Philosopher
Politician
Baiona
Claude Frédéric Bastiat
State
Forget
Expense
Everyone
Expenses
States
Libertarian
Government
Economics
Live
Wants
Liberty

More quotes by Frederic Bastiat

Image
What, then is law [government]? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.
Frederic Bastiat
Image
When plunder becomes a way of life, men create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.
Frederic Bastiat
Image
The law commit legal plunder by violating liberty and property.
Frederic Bastiat
Image
We hold from God the gift which includes all others. This gift is life - physical, intellectual, and moral life.
Frederic Bastiat
Image
No legal plunder: This is the principle of justice.
Frederic Bastiat
Image
The worst thing that can happen to a good cause is not to be skillfully attacked, but to be ineptly defended.
Frederic Bastiat
Image
There is not a tool, an implement, or a machine that has not resulted in a decrease in the contribution of human labor. Labor is not made permanently idle [though] when replaced in one special category... it turns its attack against other obstacles on the main road to progress.
Frederic Bastiat
Image
Man acquires wealth in proportion as he puts his labor to better account.
Frederic Bastiat
Image
We cannot doubt that self-interest is the mainspring of human nature. It must be clearly understood that this word is used here to designate a universal, incontestable fact, resulting from the nature of man, and not an adverse judgment, as would be the word selfishness.
Frederic Bastiat
Image
Repetition may not entertain, but it teaches.
Frederic Bastiat
Image
Property does not exist because there are laws, but laws exist because there is property.
Frederic Bastiat
Image
And now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty for liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and His works
Frederic Bastiat
Image
There are people who think that plunder loses all its immorality as soon as it becomes legal. Personally, I cannot imagine a more alarming situation.
Frederic Bastiat
Image
Slavery, protection, and monopoly find defenders, not only in those who profit by them, but in those who suffer by them.
Frederic Bastiat
Image
Often the masses are plundered and do not know it.
Frederic Bastiat
Image
There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen.
Frederic Bastiat
Image
It is easier to show the disorder that must accompany reform than the order that should follow it.
Frederic Bastiat
Image
The real cost of the State is the prosperity we do not see, the jobs that don’t exist, the technologies to which we do not have access, the businesses that do not come into existence, and the bright future that is stolen from us. The State has looted us just as surely as a robber who enters our home at night and steals all that we love.
Frederic Bastiat
Image
Liberty is an acknowledgement of faith in God and his works.
Frederic Bastiat
Image
No legal plunder: This is the principle of justice, peace, order, stability, harmony, and logic. Until the day of my death, I shall proclaim this principle with all the force of my lungs (which alas! is all too inadequate).
Frederic Bastiat