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Frederic Bastiat Quotes about Giving

All Frederic Bastiat Quotes Acting Economics Economy Evil Giving quotes Greed Injustice Justice Liberty Oppression Philosophy Politics Progress Property Responsibility Slavery Society Trade Wealth
But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at

But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.

Frederic Bastiat
Law, Government, Giving
Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.18, Filiquarian Publishing, LLC.

If philanthropy is not voluntary, it destroys liberty and justice. The law can give nothing that has not first been taken from its owner.

Frederic Bastiat
Taken, Law, Giving

Taking Five and Returning Four is not Giving

Frederic Bastiat
Giving, Four, Five

Trade barriers constitute isolation; isolation gives rise to hatred, hatred to war, and war to invasion.

Frederic Bastiat
War, Giving, Hatred

All you have to do, is to see whether the law takes from some what belongs to them in order to give it to others to whom it does not belong. We must see whether the law performs, for the profit of one citizen and to the detriment of others, an act which that citizen could not perform himself without being guilty of a crime. Repeal such a law without delay. ... [I]f you don't take care, what begins by being an exception tends to become general, to multiply itself, and to develop into a veritable system.

Frederic Bastiat
Order, Law, Giving

The law can be an instrument of equalization only as it takes from some persons and gives to other persons. When the law does this, it is an instrument of plunder.

Frederic Bastiat
Law, Giving, Doe
Frederic Bastiat (2006). “The Law”, p.28, Filiquarian Publishing, LLC.

You compare the nation to a parched piece of land and the tax to a life-giving rain. So be it. But you should also ask yourself where this rain comes from, and whether it is not precisely the tax that draws the moisture from the soil and dries it up. You should also ask yourself further whether the soil receives more of this precious water from the rain than it loses by the evaporation?

Frederic Bastiat
Rain, Land, Giving

In an economy, an act, a habit, an institution, or a law, gives birth not only to an effect, but to a series of effects. Of these effects, the first only is immediate; it manifests itself simultaneously with its cause - it is seen. The others unfold in succession - they are not seen. Now this difference is enormous, for it is often true that when the immediate consequence is favorable, the ultimate consequences are fatal, and the converse.

Frederic Bastiat
Law, Differences, Giving
"That Which Is Seen and That Which Is Not Seen". Book by Frédéric Bastiat, 1850.

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