106+ Frederic Bastiat Quotes On Government, Law And Capitalism

Frederic Bastiat was a French economist and political philosopher who lived in the 19th century. He was a major proponent of free trade and is known for his advocacy of laissez-faire economics. He is also known for his famous essay, “The Candlemakers’ Petition”, which was a satire of the protectionist policies of the French government. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Frederic Bastiat on government, law, capitalism.

Top 10 Frederic Bastiat Quotes

1. When plunder becomes a way of life, men create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.
2. 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.
3. The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else.
4. Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state wants to live at the expense of everyone.
5. If philanthropy is not voluntary, it destroys liberty and justice. The law can give nothing that has not first been taken from its owner.
6. The worst thing that can happen to a good cause is not to be skillfully attacked, but to be ineptly defended.
7. 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.
8. Is not liberty the destruction of all despotism - including, of course, legal despotism?
9. Trade barriers constitute isolation; isolation gives rise to hatred, hatred to war, and war to invasion.
10. Each of us has a natural right, from God, to defend his person, his liberty, and his property.

Frederic Bastiat Short Quotes

• If you wish to prosper, let your customer prosper.
• Competition is merely the absence of oppression.
• Justice is achieved only when injustice is absent.
• The balance of trade is an article of faith.
• When, then, does plunder stop? It stops when it becomes more painful and more dangerous than labor.
• Repetition may not entertain, but it teaches.
• It is easier to show the disorder that must accompany reform than the order that should follow it.
• If goods don't cross borders, armies will.
• Man acquires wealth in proportion as he puts his labor to better account.
• Taking Five and Returning Four is not Giving

Frederic Bastiat Quotes About Government

It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder. — Frederic Bastiat

Law is justice. In this proposition a simple and enduring government can be conceived. And I defy anyone to say how even the thought of revolution, of insurrection, of the slightest uprising could arise against a government whose organized force was confined only to suppressing injustice. — Frederic Bastiat

People are beginning to realize that the apparatus of government is costly. But what they do not know is that the burden falls inevitably on them. — Frederic Bastiat

Let us first of all frugality in government-peace and freedom we will have as a bonus. — Frederic Bastiat

When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law. — Frederic Bastiat

What, then is law [government]? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense. — Frederic Bastiat

Frederic Bastiat Quotes About Law

Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Sometimes the law places the whole apparatus of judges, police, prisons and gendarmes at the service of the plunderers, and treats the victim - when he defends himself - as a criminal. — 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

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

The law commit legal plunder by violating liberty and property. — Frederic Bastiat

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

Either fraternity is spontaneous, or it does not exist. To decree it is to annihilate it. The law can indeed force men to remain just; in vain would it try to force them to be self-sacrificing. — Frederic Bastiat

No legal plunder: This is the principle of justice. — Frederic Bastiat

The mission of law is not to oppress persons and plunder them of their property, even thought the law may be acting in a philanthropic spirit. Its mission is to protect property. — 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 than the organized combination of the individual forces? — Frederic Bastiat

Try to imagine a system of labor imposed by force that is not a violation of liberty; a transfer of wealth imposed by force that is not a violation of property rights. If you cannot do so, then you must agree that the law cannot organize labor and industry without organizing injustice. — Frederic Bastiat

Frederic Bastiat Quotes About Expense

And this is what has taken place. The delusion of the day is to enrich all classes at the expense of each other; it is to generalize plunder under pretense of organizing it. — Frederic Bastiat

They will come to learn in the end, at their own expense, that it is better to endure competition for rich customers than to be invested with monopoly over impoverished customers. — Frederic Bastiat

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

Frederic Bastiat Quotes About Property

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

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

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. — Frederic Bastiat

Property does not exist because there are laws, but laws exist because there is property. — Frederic Bastiat

Frederic Bastiat Quotes About Liberty

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

The politician attempts to remedy the evil by increasing the very thing that caused the evil in the first place: legal plunder. — Frederic Bastiat

The solution of the social problem is in liberty. — Frederic Bastiat

The plans differ; the planners are all alike. — Frederic Bastiat

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

By virtue of exchange, one man's prosperity is beneficial to all others. — Frederic Bastiat

Liberty is an acknowledgement of faith in God and his works. — Frederic Bastiat

We cannot doubt that self-interest is the mainspring of human nature. It must be clearly understood that this word is used here to designate a universal, incontestable fact, resulting from the nature of man, and not an adverse judgment, as would be the word selfishness. — Frederic Bastiat

No legal plunder: This is the principle of justice, peace, order, stability, harmony, and logic. Until the day of my death, I shall proclaim this principle with all the force of my lungs (which alas! is all too inadequate). — Frederic Bastiat

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

Frederic Bastiat Famous Quotes And Sayings

When misguided public opinion honors what is despicable and despises what is honorable, punishes virtue and rewards vice, encourages what is harmful and discourages what is useful, applauds falsehood and smothers truth under indifference or insult, a nation turns its back on progress and can be restored only by the terrible lessons of catastrophe. — 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

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

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

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 perceptible only to close investigation. — Frederic Bastiat

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

There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen. — Frederic Bastiat

Legal plunder has two roots: One, as we have just seen, is in human selfishness; the other is in false philanthropy. — Frederic Bastiat

Slavery, protection, and monopoly find defenders, not only in those who profit by them, but in those who suffer by them. — Frederic Bastiat

If everyone enjoyed the unrestricted use of his faculties and the free disposition of the fruits of his labor, social progress would be ceaseless, uninterrupted, and unfailing. — Frederic Bastiat

It is indeed a singular thing that people wish to pass laws to nullify the disagreeable consequences that the law of responsibility entails. Will they never realize that they do not eliminate these consequences but merely pass them along to other people? The result is one injustice the more and one moral the less. — Frederic Bastiat

The creation of new capital always... releases... labor. Its actual effect [though] is not to make jobs scarce, but to free men's labor for other jobs. — Frederic Bastiat

The impulses of my heart are the voice of Nature, which is never mistaken. The institutions that stand in my way are man-made and are only arbitrary conventions to which I have never given my consent. In trampling these institutions underfoot, I shall have the double pleasure of satisfying my inclinations and of believing myself a hero — 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 travel, or labor, or trade? — Frederic Bastiat

In fact, if law were restricted to protecting all persons, all liberties, and all properties; if law were nothing more than the organized combination of the individual's right to self-defense; if law were the obstacle, the check, the punisher of all oppression and plunder - is it likely that we citizens would then argue much about the extent of the franchise? — Frederic Bastiat

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 . . . . It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain — Frederic Bastiat

I find it hard to understand why those who demand Unitary Education by the State do not also demand a Unitary Press by the State... Either the State is infallible, in which case we could not do better than to submit to it the entire domain of intelligent thought, or it is not, in which case it is no more rational to hand over education to it than the press. — Frederic Bastiat

In war, the stronger overcomes the weaker. In business, the stronger imparts strength to the weaker. — Frederic Bastiat

The people who, during the election, were so wise, so moral, so perfect, now have no tendencies whatever; or if they have any, they are tendencies that lead downward to degradation. . . . If people are as incapable, as immoral, and as ignorant as the politicians indicate, then why is the right of these same people to vote defended with such passionate insistence? — Frederic Bastiat

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

It must be admitted that the tendency of the human race toward liberty is largely thwarted, especially in France. This is greatly due to a fatal desire-learned from the teachings of antiquity-that our writers on public affairs have in common: They desire to set themselves above mankind in order to arrange, organize, and regulate it according to their fancy. — Frederic Bastiat

Law is justice. And it is under the law of justice - under the reign of right; under the influence of liberty, safety, stability, and responsibility - that every person will attain his real worth and the true dignity of his being. It is only under this law of justice that mankind will achieve - slowly, no doubt, but certainly - God's design for the orderly and peaceful progress of humanity. — Frederic Bastiat

Law cannot organize labor and industry without organizing injustice. — Frederic Bastiat

You compare the nation to a parched piece of land and the tax to a life-giving rain. So be it. But you should also ask yourself where this rain comes from, and whether it is not precisely the tax that draws the moisture from the soil and dries it up. You should also ask yourself further whether the soil receives more of this precious water from the rain than it loses by the evaporation? — 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 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. — Frederic Bastiat

Which countries contain the most peaceful, the most moral, and the happiest people? Those people are found in the countries where the law least interferes with private affairs; where the government is least felt; where the individual has the greatest scope, and free opinion the greatest influence; where the administrative powers are fewest and simplest; where taxes are lightest and most nearly equal — Frederic Bastiat

But we assure the socialists that we repudiate only forced organization, not natural organization. We repudiate the forms of association that are forced upon us, not free association. We repudiate forced fraternity, not true fraternity. We repudiate the artificial unity that does nothing more than deprive persons of individual responsibility. We do not repudiate the natural unity of mankind under Providence. — Frederic Bastiat

The law has been perverted through the influence of two very different causes-naked greed and misconceived philanthropy. — Frederic Bastiat

We hold from God the gift which includes all others. This gift is life - physical, intellectual, and moral life. — Frederic Bastiat

Nothing is more senseless than to base so many expectations on the state, that is, to assume the existence of collective wisdom and foresight after taking for granted the existence of individual imbecility and improvidence. — Frederic Bastiat

It is easy to understand why the law is used by the legislator to destroy in varying degrees among the rest of the people, their personal independence by slavery, their liberty by oppression, and their property by plunder. This is done for the benefit of the person who makes the law, and in proportion to the power that he holds. — Frederic Bastiat

We cannot but be astonished at the ease with which men resign themselves to ignorance about what is most important for them to know; and we may be certain that they are determined to remain invincibly ignorant if they once come to consider it as axiomatic that there are no absolute principles. — Frederic Bastiat

Now since man is naturally inclined to avoid pain - and since labor is pain in itself - it follows that men will resort to plunder whenever plunder is easier than work. History shows this quite clearly. And under these conditions, neither religion nor morality can stop it. When, then, does plunder stop? It stops when it becomes more painful and more dangerous than labor. — Frederic Bastiat

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

They would be the shepherds over us, their sheep. Certainly such an arrangement presupposes that they are naturally superior to the rest of us. And certainly we are fully justified in demanding from the legislators and organizers proof of this natural superiority. — Frederic Bastiat

There is not a tool, an implement, or a machine that has not resulted in a decrease in the contribution of human labor. Labor is not made permanently idle [though]; when replaced in one special category... it turns its attack against other obstacles on the main road to progress. — Frederic Bastiat

No society can exist if respect for the law does not to some extent prevail; but the surest way to have the laws respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality are in contradiction, the citizen finds himself in the cruel dilemma of either losing his moral sense or of losing respect for the law, two evils of which one is as great as the other, and between which it is difficult to choose. — Frederic Bastiat

The sort of dependence that results from exchange, i.e., from commercial transactions, is a reciprocal dependence. We cannot be dependent upon a foreigner without his being dependent on us. Now, this is what constitutes the very essence of society. To sever natural interrelations is not to make oneself independent, but to isolate oneself completely. — Frederic Bastiat

When under the pretext of fraternity, the legal code imposes mutual sacrifices on the citizens, human nature is not thereby abrogated. Everyone will then direct his efforts toward contributing little to, and taking much from, the common fund of sacrifices. Now, is it the most unfortunate who gains from this struggle? Certainly not, but rather the most influential and calculating. — Frederic Bastiat

In an economy, an act, a habit, an institution, or a law, gives birth not only to an effect, but to a series of effects. Of these effects, the first only is immediate; it manifests itself simultaneously with its cause - it is seen. The others unfold in succession - they are not seen. Now this difference is enormous, for it is often true that when the immediate consequence is favorable, the ultimate consequences are fatal, and the converse. — Frederic Bastiat

The law is the collective organization of the individual's right to lawful defense of his life, liberty and property. When it is used for anything else, no matter how noble the cause, it becomes perverted and justice is weakened. Thus, the law has become perverted by stupid greed and false philanthropy. — Frederic Bastiat

Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough. — Frederic Bastiat

The profit of the one is the profit of the other. — Frederic Bastiat

...the statement, "The purpose of the law is to cause justice to reign," is not a rigorously accurate statement. It ought to be stated that the purpose of the law is to prevent injustice from reigning. In fact, it is injustice, instead of justice, that has an existence of its own. Justice is achieved only when injustice is absent. — Frederic Bastiat

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

Who then would not like to see these benefits flow upon the world from the law, as from an inexhaustible source? But is it possible? Whence does the State draw those resources that it is urged to dispense by way of benefits to individuals? Is it not from the individuals themselves? How, then, can these resources be increased by passing through the hands of a parasitic and voracious intermediary? — Frederic Bastiat

[To learn] is to harness Nature; to spare man all that is most physical, backbreaking, and brutish in the work of production; to make mind master over matter. — Frederic Bastiat

There is in all of a strong disposition to believe that anything lawful is also legitimate. This belief is so widespread that many persons have erroneously held that things are "just" because the law makes them so. — Frederic Bastiat

Countries which enjoy the highest level of peace, happiness and prosperity are the ones where the law least interfered with private affairs. — Frederic Bastiat

It is not true that the legislator has absolute power over our persons and property, since they pre-exist, and his work is only to secure them from injury. It is not true that the mission of the law is to regulate our consciences, our ideas, our will, our education, our sentiments, our works, our exchanges, our gifts, our enjoyments. Its mission is to prevent the rights of one from interfering with those of another, in any one of these things. — Frederic Bastiat

We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain. — Frederic Bastiat

The mind never fully accepts any convictions that it does not owe to its own efforts. — Frederic Bastiat

Treat all economic questions from the viewpoint of the consumer, for the interests of the consumer are the interests of the human race. — Frederic Bastiat

Life Lessons by Frederic Bastiat

1. Frederic Bastiat's work emphasizes the importance of economic freedom and the need for governments to be transparent and accountable to their citizens.
2. He argued that government intervention should be limited to protecting individuals' rights and liberties, and should not be used to redistribute wealth or interfere with the free market.
3. He also argued that the true cost of a policy should be considered, not just its immediate benefits, when deciding whether to implement it.