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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.

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
Matter
Causes
Noble
Weakened
Right
Justice
Thus
Philanthropy
Life
Law
Property
Anarchy
Individual
Organization
Collectives
Else
Cause
Collective
Become
Stupid
Greed
Used
Becomes
False
Perverted
Anything
Liberty
Defense
Lawful

More quotes by 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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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.
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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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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Either fraternity is spontaneous, or it does not exist. To decree it is to annihilate it. The law can indeed force men to remain just in vain would it try to force them to be self-sacrificing.
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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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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Finally, is not liberty the restricting of the law only to its rational sphere of organizing the right of the individual to lawful self-defense of punishing injustice?
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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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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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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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
Frederic Bastiat
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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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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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If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?
Frederic Bastiat
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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.
Frederic Bastiat
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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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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
Frederic Bastiat
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If goods don't cross borders, armies will.
Frederic Bastiat
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The profit of the one is the profit of the other.
Frederic Bastiat