"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
About this Quote
This quote by Frederic Bastiat recommends that laws are not the foundation of life, freedom, as well as residential or commercial property, however instead that these civil liberties existed before laws were produced. He implies that legislations were developed in order to secure these rights, as opposed to develop them. This suggests that legislations are not the resource of our civil liberties, however rather a way of protecting them. This concept is very important due to the fact that it implies that our civil liberties are integral and need to be valued and protected by the law. It additionally suggests that laws must not be utilized to restrict or eliminate our civil liberties, however instead to shield them. This quote is a tip that our civil liberties are not granted by the law, but rather exist independently of it.
"Life is life - whether in a cat, or dog or man. There is no difference there between a cat or a man. The idea of difference is a human conception for man's own advantage"