William Blackstone Quotes

30 quotes in 431 categories

• It is better that ten guilty escape than one innocent suffer.
• The public good is in nothing more essentially interested, than in the protection of every individual's private rights.
• That the king can do no wrong is a necessary and fundamental principle of the English constitution.
• The sciences are of a sociable disposition, and flourish best in the neighborhood of each other; nor is there any branch of learning but may…
• Punishments of unreasonable severity, especially where indiscriminately afflicted, have less effect in preventing crimes, and amending the manners of a people, than such as are…
• THIS law of nature, being co-eval with mankind and dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding…
• Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws.
• The third absolute right, inherent in every Englishman, is that of . . . the sacred and inviolable rights of private property.
• Herein indeed consists the excellence of the English government, that all parts of it form a mutual check upon each other.
• Men was formed for society, and is neither capable of living alone, nor has the courage to do it.
• Free men have arms; slaves do not.
• The liberty of the press is indeed essential to the nature of a free state: but this consists in laying no previous restraints upon publications,…
• The Bible has always been regarded as part of the Common Law of England.
• The royal navy of England hath ever been its greatest defence and ornament; it is its ancient and natural strength, - the floating bulwark of…
• Mankind will not be reasoned out of the feelings of humanity.
• No enactment of man can be considered law unless it conforms to the law of God
• Law is the embodiment of the moral sentiment of the people.
• There is nothing which so generally strikes the imagination and engages the affections of mankind, as the right of property.
• So great moreover is the regard of the law for private property, that it will not authorize the least violation of it; no, not even…
• In all tyrannical governments the supreme magistracy, or the right both of making and of enforcing the laws, is vested in one and the same…

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