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It is not true that the legislator has absolute power over our persons and property. The existence of persons and property preceded the existence of the legislator, and his function is only to guarantee their safety.

Frederic Bastiat

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Frederic Bastiat
Age: 49 †
Born: 1801
Born: June 30
Died: 1850
Died: December 24
Economist
Essayist
Magistrate
Philosopher
Politician
Baiona
Claude Frédéric Bastiat
True
Guarantee
Power
Guarantees
Persons
Absolutes
Absolute
Safety
Property
Legislator
Function
Preceded
Existence
Legislators

More quotes by Frederic Bastiat

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The law can be an instrument of equalization only as it takes from some persons and gives to other persons. When the law does this, it is an instrument of plunder.
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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.
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Either fraternity is spontaneous, or it does not exist. To decree it is to annihilate it. The law can indeed force men to remain just in vain would it try to force them to be self-sacrificing.
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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.
Frederic Bastiat
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Repetition may not entertain, but it teaches.
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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.
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It is easier to show the disorder that must accompany reform than the order that should follow it.
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...the statement, The purpose of the law is to cause justice to reign, is not a rigorously accurate statement. It ought to be stated that the purpose of the law is to prevent injustice from reigning. In fact, it is injustice, instead of justice, that has an existence of its own. Justice is achieved only when injustice is absent.
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The worst thing that can happen to a good cause is not to be skillfully attacked, but to be ineptly defended.
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Treat all economic questions from the viewpoint of the consumer, for the interests of the consumer are the interests of the human race.
Frederic Bastiat
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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.
Frederic Bastiat
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Man acquires wealth in proportion as he puts his labor to better account.
Frederic Bastiat
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The state tends to expand in proportion to its means of existence and to live beyond its means, and these are, in the last analysis, nothing but the substance of the people. Woe to the people that cannot limit the sphere of action of the state! Freedom, private enterprise, wealth, happiness, independence, personal dignity, all vanish.
Frederic Bastiat
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And this is what has taken place. The delusion of the day is to enrich all classes at the expense of each other it is to generalize plunder under pretense of organizing it.
Frederic Bastiat
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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
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There is in all of a strong disposition to believe that anything lawful is also legitimate. This belief is so widespread that many persons have erroneously held that things are just because the law makes them so.
Frederic Bastiat
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Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Sometimes the law places the whole apparatus of judges, police, prisons and gendarmes at the service of the plunderers, and treats the victim - when he defends himself - as a criminal.
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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
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People are beginning to realize that the apparatus of government is costly. But what they do not know is that the burden falls inevitably on them.
Frederic Bastiat
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Nothing is more senseless than to base so many expectations on the state, that is, to assume the existence of collective wisdom and foresight after taking for granted the existence of individual imbecility and improvidence.
Frederic Bastiat