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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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Frederic Bastiat
Age: 49 †
Born: 1801
Born: June 30
Died: 1850
Died: December 24
Economist
Essayist
Magistrate
Philosopher
Politician
Baiona
Claude Frédéric Bastiat
Society
Introducing
Evil
Instrument
Political
Instruments
Change
Liberty
Government
Impossible
Politics
Plunder
Law
Introduce
Greater
Conversion

More quotes by Frederic Bastiat

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We hold from God the gift which includes all others. This gift is life - physical, intellectual, and moral life.
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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.
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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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If everyone enjoyed the unrestricted use of his faculties and the free disposition of the fruits of his labor, social progress would be ceaseless, uninterrupted, and unfailing.
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Man acquires wealth in proportion as he puts his labor to better account.
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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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Property does not exist because there are laws, but laws exist because there is property.
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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).
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When goods do not cross borders, soldiers will.
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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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The mind never fully accepts any convictions that it does not owe to its own efforts.
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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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What, then is law [government]? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.
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Property, the right to enjoy the fruits of one's labor, the right to work, to develop, to exercise one's faculties, according to one's own understanding, without the state intervening otherwise than by its protective action this is what is meant by liberty
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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.
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If goods don't cross borders, armies will.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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