Frederic Bastiat
  • And what is 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, or labor, or 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?

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

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

  • Is not liberty the destruction of all despotism - including, of course, legal despotism?