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

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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.
~ Frédéric Bastiat

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The profit of the one is the profit of the other.
~ Frédéric Bastiat

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By virtue of exchange, one man’s prosperity is beneficial to all others.
~ Frédéric 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.
~ Frédéric 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?
~ Frédéric Bastiat

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When goods do not cross borders, soldiers will.
~ Frédéric Bastiat

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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.
~ Frédéric Bastiat

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There are two principles between which there can be no compromise—liberty and coercion.
~ Frédéric Bastiat

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Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all.
~ Frédéric Bastiat

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