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" Man recoils from trouble—from suffering; and yet he is condemned by nature to the suffering of privation, if he does not take the trouble to work. He has to choose then between these two evils. What means can he adopt to avoid both? There remains now, and there will remain, only one way, which is, to enjoy the labor of others. Such a course of conduct prevents the trouble and the enjoyment from assuming their natural proportion, and causes all the trouble to become the lot of one set of persons, and all the enjoyment that of another. This is the origin of slavery and of plunder, whatever its form may be—whether that of wars, taxes, violence, restrictions, frauds, etc.—monstrous abuses, but consistent with the thought that has given them birth. Oppression should be detested and resisted—it can hardly be called trivial. "

Frédéric Bastiat , Bastiat Collection


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Frédéric Bastiat quote : Man recoils from trouble—from suffering; and yet he is condemned by nature to the suffering of privation, if he does not take the trouble to work. He has to choose then between these two evils. What means can he adopt to avoid both? There remains now, and there will remain, only one way, which is, to enjoy the labor of others. Such a course of conduct prevents the trouble and the enjoyment from assuming their natural proportion, and causes all the trouble to become the lot of one set of persons, and all the enjoyment that of another. This is the origin of slavery and of plunder, whatever its form may be—whether that of wars, taxes, violence, restrictions, frauds, etc.—monstrous abuses, but consistent with the thought that has given them birth. Oppression should be detested and resisted—it can hardly be called trivial.