Top 125 Quotes & Sayings by Frederic Bastiat - Page 3

The balance of trade is an article of faith.

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.

As proof of this statement, consider this question: Have the people ever been known to rise against the Court of Appeals, or mob a Justice of the Peace, in order to get higher wages, free credit, tools of production, favorable tariffs, or government-created jobs? Everyone knows perfectly well that such matters are not within the jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals or a Justice of the Peace. And if government were limited to its proper functions, everyone would soon learn that these matters are not within the jurisdiction of the law itself.

[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.

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