Each of us has a natural right, from God, to defend his person, his liberty, and his property.
Frederic Bastiat

Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state wants to live at the expense of everyone.
Frederic Bastiat

Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.
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

Often the masses are plundered and do not know it.
Frederic Bastiat

The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else.
Frederic Bastiat

They will come to learn in the end, at their own expense, that it is better to endure competition for rich customers than to be invested with monopoly over impoverished customers.
Frederic Bastiat

When goods do not cross borders, soldiers will.
Frederic Bastiat