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It is not true that the legis...

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 136 quotes

This question of legal plunde...

This question of legal plunder must be settled once and for all, and there are only three ways to settle it: (1) The few plunder the many. (2) Everybody plunders everybody. (3) Nobody plunders anybody.

Frederic Bastiat 136 quotes

The most urgent necessity is,...

The most urgent necessity is, not that the State should teach, but that it should allow education. All monopolies are detestable, but the worst of all is the monopoly of education.

Frederic Bastiat 136 quotes

It's always tempting to do go...

It's always tempting to do good at someone else's expense

Frederic Bastiat 136 quotes

When plunder becomes a way of...

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 136 quotes

Society is composed of men, a...

Society is composed of men, and every man is a FREE agent. Since man is free, he can choose; since he can choose, he can err; since he can err, he can suffer. I go further: He must err and he must suffer; for his starting point is ignorance, and in his ignorance he sees before him an infinite number of unknown roads, all of which save one lead to error.

Frederic Bastiat 136 quotes

There are people who think th...

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 136 quotes

Since the natural tendencies ...

Since the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to allow them liberty, how comes it to pass that the tendencies of organizers are always good?

Frederic Bastiat 136 quotes

If you wish to prosper, let y...

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.

Frederic Bastiat 136 quotes

Property, the right to enjoy ...

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 136 quotes

The law has been perverted, a...

The law has been perverted, and the powers of the state have become perverted along with it. The law has not only been turned from its proper function, but made to follow an entirely contrary purpose. The law has become a tool for every kind of greed. Instead of preventing crime, the law itself is guilty of the abuses it is supposed to punish. If this is true, it is a serious matter, and moral duty requires me to call the attention of my fellow-citizens to it.

Frederic Bastiat 136 quotes

The state tends to expand in ...

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.

Frederic Bastiat 136 quotes

And now that the legislators ...

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 136 quotes

If goods don't cross borders,...

If goods don't cross borders, armies will.

Frederic Bastiat 136 quotes

As long as it is admitted tha...

As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose - that it may violate property instead of protecting it - then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder.

Frederic Bastiat 136 quotes

Ah, you miserable creatures! ...

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 136 quotes

All you have to do, is to see...

All you have to do, is to see whether the law takes from some what belongs to them in order to give it to others to whom it does not belong. We must see whether the law performs, for the profit of one citizen and to the detriment of others, an act which that citizen could not perform himself without being guilty of a crime. Repeal such a law without delay. ... [I]f you don't take care, what begins by being an exception tends to become general, to multiply itself, and to develop into a veritable system.

Frederic Bastiat 136 quotes

But how is this legal plunder...

But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.

Frederic Bastiat 136 quotes

The real cost of the State is...

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 136 quotes

The law can be an instrument ...

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 136 quotes

Добрые, щедрые, великодушные: 6 советских актеров, которые были всеобщими любимчиками

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