Quotes by

Frederic Bastiat

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

The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else. – 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 travel, or labor, or trade? – 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