Quotes from The Law

By Frédéric Bastiat (1850)

• 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.#
  LawPolitics
• Men will resort to plunder whenever plunder is easier than work.#
  Proverb
• 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.#
  ProverbLaw
• It is injustice, rather than justice, that has an existence of its own. Justice is achieved only when injustice is absent.#
  JusticeLaw
• 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.#
  SocialismPolitics
• Since law necessarily requires the support of force, its lawful domain is only in the areas where the use of force is necessary. This is justice.#
  LawJusticePolitics