But when the law, by means of its necessary agent, force, imposes upon men a regulation of labor, a method or a subject of education, a religious faith or creed then the law is no longer negative it acts positively upon people. It substitutes the will of the legislator for their own wills, the initiative of the legislator for their own initiatives. When this happens, the people no longer need to discuss, to compare and to plan ahead the law does all this for them. Intelligence becomes a useless prop for the people they cease to be men they lose their personality, their liberty, their property.
More Quotes from Claude Frédéric Bastiat:
Since the law organizes justice, the socialists ask why the law should not also organize labor, education, and religion. Why should not law be used for these purposes Because it could not organize labor, education, and religion without destroying justice. We must remember that law is force, and that, consequently, the proper functions of the law cannot lawfully extend beyond the proper functions of force. When law and force keep a person within the bounds of justice, they impose nothing but a mere negation. They oblige him only to abstain from harming others. They violate neither his personality, his liberty, nor his property. They safeguard all of these. They are defensive they defend equally the rights of all.Claude Frédéric Bastiat
The mind never fully accepts any convictions that it does not owe to its own efforts.
Claude Frédéric 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.
Claude Frédéric Bastiat
Actually, what is the political struggle that we witness It is the instinctive struggle of all people toward liberty. And what is this 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, of labor, of trade 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 Is not liberty the destruction of all despotismincluding, of course, legal despotism 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.
Claude Frédéric Bastiat
The state is the great fiction by which everybody tries to live at the expense of everybody else.
Claude Frédéric Bastiat
The plans differ the planners are all alike....
Claude Frédéric Bastiat
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Based on Topics: Education Quotes, Intelligence Quotes, Labor Quotes, Law & Regulation Quotes, Liberty & Freedom Quotes, People Quotes, Property QuotesBased on Keywords: legislator, prop, substitutes
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