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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.

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
Happen
Causes
Happens
Skillfully
Thing
Defended
Good
Attacked
Cause
Liberty
Worst

More quotes by Frederic Bastiat

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Trade protection accumulates upon a single point the good which it effects, while the evil inflicted is infused throughout the mass. The one strikes the eye at a first glance, while the other becomes perceptible only to close investigation.
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Taking Five and Returning Four is not Giving
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When goods do not cross borders, soldiers will.
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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.
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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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No legal plunder: This is the principle of justice.
Frederic Bastiat
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The law is the collective organization of the individual's right to lawful defense of his life, liberty and property. When it is used for anything else, no matter how noble the cause, it becomes perverted and justice is weakened. Thus, the law has become perverted by stupid greed and false philanthropy.
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The profit of the one is the profit of the other.
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Often the masses are plundered and do not know it.
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The mind never fully accepts any convictions that it does not owe to its own efforts.
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Man acquires wealth in proportion as he puts his labor to better account.
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Legal plunder has two roots: One, as we have just seen, is in human selfishness the other is in false philanthropy.
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Slavery, protection, and monopoly find defenders, not only in those who profit by them, but in those who suffer by them.
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Liberty is an acknowledgement of faith in God and his works.
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The solution of the social problem is in liberty.
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The impulses of my heart are the voice of Nature, which is never mistaken. The institutions that stand in my way are man-made and are only arbitrary conventions to which I have never given my consent. In trampling these institutions underfoot, I shall have the double pleasure of satisfying my inclinations and of believing myself a hero
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They would be the shepherds over us, their sheep. Certainly such an arrangement presupposes that they are naturally superior to the rest of us. And certainly we are fully justified in demanding from the legislators and organizers proof of this natural superiority.
Frederic Bastiat
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Since no individual acting separately can lawfully use force to destroy the rights of others, does it not logically follow that the same principle also applies to the common force that is nothing more than the organized combination of the individual forces?
Frederic Bastiat
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What, then is law [government]? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.
Frederic Bastiat
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It is easier to show the disorder that must accompany reform than the order that should follow it.
Frederic Bastiat