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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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Frederic Bastiat
Age: 49 †
Born: 1801
Born: June 30
Died: 1850
Died: December 24
Economist
Essayist
Magistrate
Philosopher
Politician
Baiona
Claude Frédéric Bastiat
Defense
Organization
Liberty
Law
Individual
Lawful
Government
Intriguing
Right
Collectives
Collective

More quotes by Frederic Bastiat

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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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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 mission of law is not to oppress persons and plunder them of their property, even thought the law may be acting in a philanthropic spirit. Its mission is to protect property.
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.
Frederic Bastiat
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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.
Frederic Bastiat
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The mind never fully accepts any convictions that it does not owe to its own efforts.
Frederic Bastiat
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The plans differ the planners are all alike.
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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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
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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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Liberty is an acknowledgement of faith in God and his works.
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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No legal plunder: This is the principle of justice.
Frederic Bastiat
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It is easy to understand why the law is used by the legislator to destroy in varying degrees among the rest of the people, their personal independence by slavery, their liberty by oppression, and their property by plunder. This is done for the benefit of the person who makes the law, and in proportion to the power that he holds.
Frederic Bastiat
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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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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
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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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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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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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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.
Frederic Bastiat