"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. What is the law, then? As I have said elsewhere, it is the collective organization of the individual right of legitimate defense."
Social contract

January 1, 1970

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Original Language: English

Sources

Frédéric Bastiat, The Law (1850)

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Social_contract