Frederic Bastiat Quotes

• For liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and his works.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Topics in God

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

  Frederic Bastiat

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Philosophy

• 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

  Topics in Education, Uncategorized

  Tags in Association, Liberty

• Finally, is not liberty the restricting of the law only to its rational sphere of organizing the right of the individual to lawful self-defense; of punishing injustice?

  Frederic Bastiat

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Rational, Organizing

• Is not liberty the destruction of all despotism – including, of course, legal despotism?

  Frederic Bastiat

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Including, Despotism

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Persons, Freedom

• When goods do not cross borders, soldiers will.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Goods, Cross

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Better, Learn, Competition

• The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Expense, Great

• Often the masses are plundered and do not know it.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Often

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Property, Exist, Fact

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

  Frederic Bastiat

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Government, Great

• Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state wants to live at the expense of everyone.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Expense, Forget

• Each of us has a natural right, from God, to defend his person, his liberty, and his property.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Person, Defend, Natural

Frederic Bastiat (14)

Birth:	30th June, 1801
Death:	24th December, 1850
Nationality:	French
Profession:	Economist, Philosopher, Theorist, Writer

About

Claude Frédéric Bastiat was born in Bayonne, France. He was a French classical liberal theorist, economist, philosopher, writer, and member of the French National Assembly. He was notable for developing the economic concept of opportunity cost, and for introducing the Parable of the Broken Window or the "Glazier's fallacy". He was the author of many works on economics and political economy. He wrote several books include: The Law, Economic sophisms, The Bastiat Collection, Economic harmonies, Essays on Political Economy, Economic Fallacies, What is Free Trade?, Fallacies of protection, and Protection and Communism.

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