Bastiat Quotes

When goods do not cross borders, soldiers will. – Frederic Bastiat

The state is the great fiction through which everybody endeavours to live at the expense of everybody else. – Frederic Bastiat

Justice means to live on one’s own labor, to consume one’s own fruit, and not to be dependent on the labor of others. – Frederic Bastiat

The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense. – Frederic Bastiat

Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place. – Frederic Bastiat

Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else. – Frederic Bastiat

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

Men naturally rebel against the injustice of which they are victims. – Frederic Bastiat

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

Injustice, poverty, slavery, ignorance – these may be cured by reform or revolution. But men do not live only by fighting evils. They live by positive goals, individual and collective, a vast variety of them, seldom predictable, at times incompatible. – Frederic Bastiat

Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state lives at the expense of everyone. – Frederic Bastiat

The worst thing that can happen to a good cause is, not to be skillfully attacked, but to be ineptly defended. – Frederic Bastiat

Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. – Frederic Bastiat

We have come to a point where everyone is so concerned about their own rights that they forget the rights of others. – Frederic Bastiat

We are prone to judge success by the index of our salaries or the size of our automobiles, rather than by the quality of our service and relationship to mankind. – Frederic Bastiat

I don’t really mind if you sit around reading the encyclopedia all day. But I do mind that you think you’re superior to those who don’t, just because you do. – Frederic Bastiat

The law is justice — simple and clear, precise and bounded. Every eye can see it, and every mind can grasp it. – Frederic Bastiat

The state is the great fiction by which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else. – Frederic Bastiat

In every age, everyone knows they are going to die, but too few believe it. – Frederic Bastiat

Protectionism is the belief that the government can make everything better by making everything worse. – Frederic Bastiat

Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state lives at the expense of everyone. – Frederic Bastiat

The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else. – Frederic Bastiat

So long as we resort to plunder and oppression to achieve our goals, so long will violence, war, poverty, and tyranny prevail. – Frederic Bastiat

Plunder and oppression are twin sisters. – Frederic Bastiat

The state is the great fiction through which everyone endeavors to live at the expense of everyone else. – Frederic Bastiat

Legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways. – Frederic Bastiat

The worst thing that can happen to a good cause is not to be skillfully attacked, but to be ineptly defended. – Frederic Bastiat

When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves, in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it. – Frederic Bastiat

Trade is a discovery of civilization. – Frederic Bastiat

What is law? What ought it to be? What is its scope? – Frederic Bastiat

When ideas and laws are confused, the result is confusion multiplied a hundredfold. – Frederic Bastiat

There is justice only where there is liberty. – Frederic Bastiat

The mission of the law is not to oppress persons and plunder them of their property, even though the law may be acting in a philanthropic spirit. – Frederic Bastiat

The law perverted! The law — and, in its wake, all the collective forces of the nation — the law, I say, not only diverted from its proper direction, but made to pursue one entirely contrary! – Frederic Bastiat

The function of government should be to protect property rights, not to redistribute wealth. – Frederic Bastiat

Government is not reason. It is not eloquence. It is force. And like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. – Frederic Bastiat

The legitimate purpose of law is to protect the free exercise of the rights of the individual, not to compel their exercise. – Frederic Bastiat

When a portion of wealth is transferred from the person who owns it — without his consent and without compensation, and whether by force or by fraud — to anyone who does not own it, then I say the plunder is exactly what the law is supposed to prevent. – Frederic Bastiat

Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, despises commerce; it considers it a capitalist occupation; it calls it the antipode of art. – Frederic Bastiat

Man can live and satisfy his wants only by ceaseless labor; by the ceaseless application of his faculties to natural resources. – Frederic Bastiat

Legal plunder has two roots: one of them, as we have already seen, is in human greed; the other is in misconceived philanthropy. – Frederic Bastiat

Never forget that money is the indispensable means to happiness and well-being. – Frederic Bastiat

In a society where the rights of the individual are protected, people are free to pursue their own dreams and aspirations. – Frederic Bastiat

Taxes should be simple, fair, and efficient, allowing individuals to keep more of what they earn and encouraging economic growth. – Frederic Bastiat

The state is not an omnipotent being that can solve all of society’s problems. It should focus on its core functions and leave the rest to individuals and the free market. – Frederic Bastiat