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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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Frederic Bastiat
Age: 49 †
Born: 1801
Born: June 30
Died: 1850
Died: December 24
Economist
Essayist
Magistrate
Philosopher
Politician
Baiona
Claude Frédéric Bastiat
Government
Losing
Citizens
Respect
Contradict
Liberty
Alternative
Either
Cruel
Law
Citizen
Moral
Alternatives
Sense
Morality

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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.
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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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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.
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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.
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The plans differ the planners are all alike.
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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.
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The profit of the one is the profit of the other.
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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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Taking Five and Returning Four is not Giving
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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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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 worst thing that can happen to a good cause is not to be skillfully attacked, but to be ineptly defended.
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If goods don't cross borders, armies will.
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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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Repetition may not entertain, but it teaches.
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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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...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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When goods do not cross borders, soldiers will.
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