“ Is not liberty the destruction of all despotism - including, of course, legal despotism? Frederic Bastiat
“ Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else. Frederic Bastiat
“ In short, is not liberty the freedom of every person to make full use of his faculties, so long as he does not harm other persons while doing so? Frederic Bastiat
“ And what is liberty, whose very name makes the heart beat faster and shakes the world? Is it not the union of all liberties - liberty of conscience, of education, of association, of the press, of trav… Frederic Bastiat
“ The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else. Frederic Bastiat
“ In the first place, it would efface from everybody’sconscience the distinction between justice and injustice.No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a cer-tain degree, but the safest way… Frederic Bastiat
“ 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… Frederic Bastiat
“ We disapprove of state education. Than the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Than the socialists say that we don't want an religion at all. We object… Frederic Bastiat
“ Have you ever witnessed the anger of the good shopkeeper, James Goodfellow, when his careless son has happened to break a pane of glass? If you have been present at such a scene, you will most assured… Frederic Bastiat
“ But things have been so admirably arranged by the Divine inventor of social order that in this, as in everything else, political economy and morality, far from clashing, agree; and the wisdom of Arist… Frederic Bastiat
“ One of the strangest phenomena of our time, and one that will probably be a matter of astonishment to our decedents, is that doctrine which is founded upon this triple hypothesis: the radical passiven… Frederic Bastiat
“ I do not think that illegal plunder, such as theft or swindling — which the penal code defines, anticipates, and punishes — can be called socialism. It is not this kind of plunder that systematically… Frederic Bastiat
“ Now, legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways. Thus we have an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive tax… Frederic Bastiat
“ 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
“ I cannot possibly understand how fraternity can be legally enforced without liberty being legally destroyed... Frederic Bastiat
“ Since no individual acting separately can lawfully use force to destroy the rights of others, does it not logically follow that the same principle also applies to the common force that is nothing more… Frederic Bastiat
“ The law has placed the collective force at the disposal of the unscrupulous who wish, without risk, to exploit the person, liberty, and property of others. It has converted plunder into a right, in or… Frederic Bastiat
“ There is in all of us a strong disposition to regard what is lawful as legitimate, so much so that many falsely derive all justice from law. It is sufficient, then, for the law to order and sanction p… Frederic Bastiat
