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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

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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
Good
Accounts
Effect
Effects
Difference
Foreseen
Differences
Confines
Takes
Economist
Seen
Account
Must
Visible

More quotes by Frederic Bastiat

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The profit of the one is the profit of the other.
Frederic Bastiat
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Liberty is an acknowledgement of faith in God and his works.
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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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If you wish to prosper, let your customer prosper. When people have learned this lesson, everyone will seek his individual welfare in the general welfare. Then jealousies between man and man, city and city, province and province, nation and nation, will no longer trouble the world.
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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
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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.
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.
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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Repetition may not entertain, but it teaches.
Frederic Bastiat
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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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The politician attempts to remedy the evil by increasing the very thing that caused the evil in the first place: legal plunder.
Frederic Bastiat
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Taking Five and Returning Four is not Giving
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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.
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Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough.
Frederic Bastiat
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When misguided public opinion honors what is despicable and despises what is honorable, punishes virtue and rewards vice, encourages what is harmful and discourages what is useful, applauds falsehood and smothers truth under indifference or insult, a nation turns its back on progress and can be restored only by the terrible lessons of catastrophe.
Frederic Bastiat
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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
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The solution of the social problem is in liberty.
Frederic Bastiat
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The law commit legal plunder by violating liberty and property.
Frederic Bastiat
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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
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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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