Bastiat quote ✍️

It is so true, that the Socialists look upon mankind as a subject for social experiments, that if, by chance, they are not quite certain of the success of these experiments, they will request a portion of mankind, as a subject to experiment upon. It is well known how popular the ideaof trying all systems is, and one of their chiefs has been known seriously to demand of the Constituent Assembly a parish, with all its inhabitants, upon which to make his experiments. It is thus that an inventor will make a small machine before he makes one of the regular size. Thus the chemist sacrifices some substances, the agriculturist some seed and corner of his field, to make trial of an idea. But think of the difference between the gardener and his trees, between the inventor and his machine, between the chemist and his substances, between the agriculturist and his seed! The Socialist thinks, in all sincerity, that there is the same difference between himself and mankind. No wonder the politicians of the nineteenth century look upon society as an artifical production of the legislator's genius. This idea, the result of a classical education, has taken possession of all the thinkers and great writers of our country. To all these persons, the relations between mankind and the legislator appear to be the same as those that exist between the clay and the potter.

Until we understand what the land is, we are at odds with everything we touch. And to come to that understanding it is necessary, even now, to leave the regions of our conquest - t…

On the other hand, we can all call to mind the case of seeing the same thing many times over and over. Everyone has had the experience of having their impression of a particular ob…

It is a hot summer day in Tennessee in the midst of the sixth decade of this century. The girl has climbed the fence to get to the swimming hole she has visited so many summers of …