Life, faculties, production-in other words, individuality, liberty, property-this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it.

— Frédéric 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 taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed profits, minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of labor, free credit, and so on, and so on.

— Frédéric 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 passiveness of mankind, -the omnipotence of the law, -the infallibility of the legislature: this is the sacred symbol of the party that proclaims itself exclusively democratic.

— Frédéric 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 than the organized combination of the individual forces?

— Frédéric 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 order to protect plunder. And it has converted lawful defense into a crime, in order to punish lawful defense... When, then, does plunder stop? It stops when it becomes more painful and more dangerous than labor.

— Frédéric Bastiat

The law is guilty of the evils it is supposed to punish.

— Frédéric 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.

— Frédéric Bastiat

The profit of the one is the profit of the other.

— Frédéric Bastiat

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

— Frédéric 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 plunder, that it may appear to many consciences just and sacred. Slavery, protection, and monopoly find defenders, not only in those who profit by them, but in those who suffer by them. If you suggest a doubt as to the morality of these institutions, it is said directly—“You are a dangerous experimenter, a utopian, a theorist, a despised of the laws; you would shake the basis upon which society rests.

— Frédéric Bastiat