Law Quotations
Law
From Wikiquote Learn that sacred law which is followed by men learned (in the Veda) and assented to in their hearts by the virtuous, who are ever exempt from hatred and inordinate affection. ~ Laws of ManuLaw is a term referring to sociological or scientific norms, or systems and expressions based upon them. In social or political terms, the rule of law refers to a system of rules or guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern the actions and behavior of individuals and groups of people within societies and between them, shaping politics, economics and general circumstances in numerous ways and providing further means of social mediation. The expressed civil laws of human societies often arise as postulates or proposals patterned upon or related to what are regarded as manifest laws of nature or divinity, and often make appeal to various notions of the proper social roles of justice, unity and liberty.
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Quotes
Necessity knows no law but makes law. ~ Gratian- Alphabetized by author
- Learn that sacred law which is followed by men learned (in the Veda) and assented to in their hearts by the virtuous, who are ever exempt from hatred and inordinate affection.
- Anonymous author of The Laws of Manu, traditionally ascribed to Manu (or Brahma), as translated by F. Max Müller (1886), Ch. 2, p. 29
- Necessitas non habet legem
- Necessity has no law.
- Anonymous Latin proverb which arose in the middle ages, leading to many variant expressions and extensions in many cultures.
- Variants:
- Quia enim necessitas non habet legem, set ipsa sibi facit legume
- Necessity knows no law but makes law.
- Gratian, in Decretum Gratiani
- Necessity knows no law but makes law.
- Necessity knows no laws.
- Spanish proverb, as quoted in The International Thesaurus of Quotations (1970) edited by Rhoda Thomas Tripp, p. 429
- الضرورات تبيح المحظورات
- Necessity knows no restrictions.
- Arabic Proverb
- Necessity knows no restrictions.
- Necessity knows no laws, and a man must part with his last farthing to buy bread.
- "C." in The Farmer's Magazine Vol. 1, No. 4 (October 1838), p. 271
- Necessity knows no laws or customs.
- Joseph Kinmont Hart, Mind in Transition : Patterns, Conflicts and Changes in the Evolution of the Mind (1938), p. 88
- Necessity has no law.
- The more corrupt a society, the more numerous its laws.
- Edward Abbey, in A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto) (1990)
- Surely we will not dare say that these laws are unjust, or rather, that they are not laws at all. For it seems to me that an unjust law is no law at all.
- Augustine of Hippo (St Augustine) [1]
- A nation that will not enforce its laws has no claim to the respect and allegiance of its people.
- Ambrose Bierce. 'Industrial Discontent', The Shadow on the Dial and other Essays (1909)
- Wo wir unfähig sind, die Gesetze der Notwendigkeit zu erkennen, da glauben wir, frei zu sein.
- When we are incapable of recognizing the laws of necessity, we believe ourselves to be free.
- Ludwig Börne, as quoted in Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists (2007) by James Geary, p. 16
- Variant translation: Wherever it is impossible for us to recognize the law of necessity, we believe we are free.
- When we are incapable of recognizing the laws of necessity, we believe ourselves to be free.
- If the government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for the law. It invites every man to become a law unto himself. It invites anarchy.
- Justice Louis Brandeis, dissenting; Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, (1928)
- Ananke must above all be regarded as cosmic force, that is as the ruling law in the universe; thus … the super-personal, cosmic significance of "the All" ruled by Ananke as well, can be accepted as certain. … In the image of the sphere, where the true existence of thought can alone recognize itself, the non-corporeal Ananke becomes conceivable, being the law that forms the world and holds it together.
- Otto Brendel, on ancient notions of the role of Ananke (Necessity), in Symbolism of the Sphere : A Contribution to the History of Earlier Greek Philosophy (1977), p. 37
- Our wrangling lawyers * * * are so litigious and busy here on earth, that I think they will plead their clients' causes hereafter, some of them in hell.
- Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Democritus to the Reader.
- Your pettifoggers damn their souls,
To share with knaves in cheating fools.
- Samuel Butler, Hudibras, Part II (1664), Canto I, line 515
- Is not the winding up witnesses,
And nicking, more than half the bus'ness?
For witnesses, like watches, go
Just as they're set, too fast or slow;
And where in Conscience they're strait-lac'd,
'Tis ten to one that side is cast.
- Samuel Butler, Hudibras, Part II (1664), Canto II, line 359
- An unconstitutional act is not law; it confers no rights; it imposes no duties; affords no protection; it creates no office; it is in legal contemplation, as inoperative as though it had never been passed.
- J. Chase, writing the opinion in Norton vs. Shelby County, 118 U.S. 425 p.442
- I think it can be shown that the law makes ten criminals where it restrains one.
- Necessity hath no law. Feigned necessities, imagined necessities... are the greatest cozenage that men can put upon the Providence of God, and make pretenses to break known rules by.
- Oliver Cromwell, in a speech to the First Protectorate Parliament (12 September 1654)
- The one great principle of the English law is, to make business for itself.
- Charles Dickens, Bleak House (1853).
- If it's near dinner time, the foreman takes out his watch when the jury have retired and says: "Dear me, gentlemen, ten minutes to five, I declare! I dine at five, gentlemen." "So do I," says everybody else except two men who ought to have dined at three, and seem more than half disposed to stand out in consequence. The foreman smiles, and puts up his watch: "Well, gentlemen, what do we say? Plaintiff, defendant, gentlemen? I rather think so far as I am concerned, gentlemen — I say I rather think — but don't let that influence you — I rather think the plaintiff's the man." Upon this two or three other men are sure to say they think so too — as of course they do; and then they get on very unanimously and comfortably.
- Charles Dickens, Pickwick Papers (1836), Volume II, Chapter VI.
- I know'd what 'ud come o' this here mode o' doin' business. Oh, Sammy, Sammy, vy worn't there a alleybi!
- Charles Dickens, Pickwick Papers (1836), Volume II, Chapter VI
- We live in and by the law. It makes us what we are: citizens and employees and doctors and spouses and people who own things. It is sword, shield, and menace: we insist on our wage, or refuse to pay our rent, or are forced to forfeit penalties, or are closed up in jail, all in the name of what our abstract and ethereal sovereign, the law, has decreed. And we argue about what it has decreed, even when the books that are supposed to record its commands and directions are silent; we act then as if law had muttered its doom, too low to be heard distinctly. We are subjects of law's empire, liegemen to its methods and ideals, bound in spirit while we debate what we must therefore do.
- Ronald Dworkin, Preface to Law's Empire (1986)
- The Law is the true embodiment,
Of everything that's excellent,
It has no kind of fault or flaw,
And I, my Lords, embody the Law.
- W.S. Gilbert, in Iolanthe (1882)
- Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.
- Oliver Goldsmith, The Traveller (1764), line 386. Same in Vicar of Wakefield.
- The rule of law can be wiped out in one misguided, however well-intentioned generation. And if that should happen, it could take a century of striving and ordeal to restore it, and then only at the cost of the lives of many good men and women.
- William T. Gossett, President of the American Bar Association, August 9, 1969 speech.
- I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution.
- Ulysses S. Grant, Inaugural Address (March 4, 1869).
- One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."
- Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from a Birmingham Jail[2]
- All of our punishment institutions, including jails, laws, church confessionals, and so forth, are systems of illusion. The order of the universe, the infinite justice of yin and yang, naturally takes care of all motion and compensation. We don't need to invent arbitrary ways to make balance with punishments.
- Michio Kushi, with Edward Esko, in Spiritual Journey, p. 57
- The law of levity is allowed to supersede the law of gravity.
- R. A. Lafferty, in Space Chantey (1968)
- Here forms, here colours, here the character of every part of the universe are concentrated to a point; and that point is so marvellous a thing ... Oh! marvellous, O stupendous Necessity — by thy laws thou dost compel every effect to be the direct result of its cause, by the shortest path. These are miracles...
- Leonardo da Vinci, in speaking of the pupil of the eye in The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, Vol. I, as translated by Jean Paul Richter (1888)
- A law of nature is not a formula drawn up by a legislator, but a mere summary of the observed facts — a "bundle of facts." Things do not act in a particular way because there is a law, but we state the "law" because they act in that way.
- Joseph McCabe, in The Existence of God (1913)
- The law is a sort of hocus-pocus science, that smiles in yer face while it picks yer pocket; and the glorious uncertainty of it is of mair use to the professors than the justice of it.
- Charles Macklin, Love à la Mode (1759), Act ii, scene 1.
- Laws, in their most general signification, are the necessary relations derived from the nature of things.
- Montesquieu, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 375.
- Curse on all laws but those which love has made.
- Alexander Pope, Eloisa to Abelard (1717), line 74.
- If one were to pass a law limiting holistic physicians to a single holistic method, I would stick with my dentist.
- Thomas Rau, Biological Medicin (German: Biologische Medizin, Fona-Verlag (2007) - ISBN 978-3-03780-803-0) - p. 144
- As Bob Dylan forgot to say, "To live outside the law, you must be lucky."
- Spider Robinson, in Callahan's Key (2000)
- Necessity creates the law, — it supersedes rules; and whatever is reasonable and just in such cases is likewise legal.
- William Scott, 1st Baron Stowell, The Gratitude (1801), 3 Rob. Adm. Rep. 240. Note that "The Gratitude" is the name of a legal case in admiralty, such cases being styled by the name of the vessel at issue.
- Quædam iura non scripta, sed omnibus scriptis certiora sunt.
- Some laws are not written, but are more decisive than any written law.
- Seneca the Elder, Controversiae , Book 1, Chapter 1, sect. 14; translation from Norman T. Pratt Seneca's Drama (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983) p. 140.
- Leges bello siluere coactae.
- But silenced now are laws in war.
- Marcus Annaeus Lucanus, Pharsalia, Book I, line 277
- Mark what unvary'd laws preserve each state,
Laws wise as Nature, and as fixed as Fate.
- Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man (1733-34), Epistle III, line 189.
- I stand ready to negotiate, but I want no part of laws: I acknowledge none; I protest against every order with which some authority may feel pleased on the basis of some alleged necessity to over-rule my free will. Laws: We know what they are, and what they are worth! They are spider webs for the rich and mighty, steel chains for the poor and weak, fishing nets in the hands of government.
- Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, in "The Authority Principle" in No Gods, No Masters : An Anthology of Anarchism (1980) Daniel Guérin, as translated by Paul Sharkey (1998), p. 90
- In the first place, it is not improper to observe, that the law of cases of necessity is not likely to be well furnished with precise rules; necessity creates the law, it supersedes rules; and whatever is reasonable and just in such cases, is likewise legal; it is not to be considered as matter of surprise, therefore, if much instituted rule is not to be found on such subjects.
- William Scott, 1st Baron Stowell, in The Gratitudine (18 December 1801); as published in Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the High Court of Admiralty, Commencing with the Judgments of the Right Hon. Sir William Scott, Michaelmas Term, 1798, Vol. III (1802), p. 266
- You who wear out a good wholesome forenoon in hearing a cause between an orange-wife and a fosset-seller; and then rejourn the controversy of three pence to a second day of audience.
- William Shakespeare, Coriolanus (c. 1607-08), Act II, scene 1, line 77.
- He hath resisted law,
And therefore law shall scorn him further trial
Than the severity of the public power.
- William Shakespeare, Coriolanus (c. 1607-08), Act III, scene 1, line 267.
- In the corrupted currents of this world,
Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice;
And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law: but 'tis not so above;
There is no shuffling, there the action lies
In his true nature; and we ourselves compell'd,
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,
To give in evidence.
- William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1600-02), Act III, scene 3, line 57.
- But is this law?
Ay, marry is 't; crowner's quest law.
- William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1600-02), Act V, scene 1, line 23.
- But, I prithee, sweet wag, shall there be gallows standing in England when thou art king? and resolution thus fobbed as it is with the rusty curb of old father antic the law?
- William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I (c. 1597), Act I, scene 2, line 65.
- Faith, I have been a truant in the law,
And never yet could frame my will to it;
And therefore frame the law unto my will.
- William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part I (c. 1588-90), Act II, scene 4, line 7.
- But in these nice sharp quillets of the law,
Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw.
- William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part I (c. 1588-90), Act II, scene 4, line 11.
- The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.
- William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part II (c. 1590-91), Act IV, scene 2, line 84.
- Press not a falling man too far! 'tis virtue:
His faults lie open to the laws; let them,
Not you, correct him.
- William Shakespeare, Henry VIII (1613), Act III, scene 2, line 333.
- When law can do no right,
Let it be lawful that law bar no wrong.
- William Shakespeare, King John (1598), Act III, scene 1, line 185.
- 'Tis like the breath of an unfee'd lawyer; you gave me nothing for 't.
- William Shakespeare, King Lear (1608), Act I, scene 4, line 142.
- Bold of your worthiness, we single you
As our best-moving fair solicitor.
- William Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost (c. 1595-6), Act II, scene 1, line 28.
- We have strict statutes and most biting laws.
- William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure (1603), Act I, scene 3, line 19.
- We must not make a scarecrow of the law,
Setting it up to fear the birds of prey,
And let it keep one shape, till custom make it
Their perch and not their terror.
- William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure (1603), Act II, scene 1, line 1.
- To offend, and judge, are distinct offices
And of opposed natures.
- William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice (late 1590s), Act II, scene 9, line 61.
- In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt
But, being season'd with a gracious voice,
Obscures the show of evil?
- William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice (late 1590s), Act III, scene 2, line 75.
- It must not be; there is no power in Venice
Can alter a decree established:
'Twill be recorded for a precedent;
And many an error by the same example
Will rush into the state.
- William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice (late 1590s), Act IV, scene 1, line 218.
- The bloody book of law
You shall yourself read in the bitter letter
After your own sense.
- William Shakespeare, Othello (c. 1603), Act I, scene 3, line 67.
- I am a subject,
And I challenge law: attorneys are denied me;
And therefore personally I lay my claim
To my inheritance of free descent.
- William Shakespeare, Richard II (c. 1595), Act II, scene 3, line 133.
- Before I be convict by course of law,
To threaten me with death is most unlawful.
- William Shakespeare, Richard III (c. 1591), Act I, scene 4, line 192.
- Do as adversaries do in law,
Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.
- William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew (c. 1593-94), Act I, scene 2, line 278.
- We are for law; he dies.
- William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens (date uncertain, published 1623), Act III, scene 5, line 86.
- They have been grand-jurymen since before Noah was a sailor.
- William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night (c. 1601-02), Act III, scene 2, line 16.
- Still you keep o' the windy side of the law.
- William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night (c. 1601-02), Act III, scene 4, line 181
- When I hear any man talk of an unalterable law, the only effect it produces upon me is to convince me that he is an unalterable fool.
- Sydney Smith, in Peter Plymley's Letters (1808), Letter IV
- Law is the rule, principle, obligation or requirement of natural justice.
- Lysander Spooner, The Unconstitutionality of Slavery (1860)
- Who ever knew an honest brute
at law his neighbor prosecute?
- Johnathan Swift, The Logicians Refuted (1735)
- That which is not just, is not Law; and that which is not Law, ought not to be obeyed.
- Necessity knows no law except to conquer.
- Publilius Syrus, Moral Sayings 553
- Corruptissima republica, plurimæ leges.
- The more corrupt the state, the more laws.
- Tacitus, Annales (AD 117), III. 27.
- Rebus cunctis inest quidam velut orbis.
- In all things there is a kind of law of cycles.
- Tacitus, Annales (AD 117), III. 55.
- Initia magistratum nostrorum meliora, ferme finis inclinat.
- Our magistrates discharge their duties best at the beginning; and fall off toward the end.
- Tacitus, Annales (AD 117), XV. 31.
- No man e'er felt the halter draw,
With good opinion of the law.
- John Trumbull, McFingal, Canto iii (1782), line 489.
- American industry is not free, as once it was free; American enterprise is not free; the man with only a little capital is finding it harder to get into the field, more and more impossible to compete with the big fellow. Why? Because the laws of this country do not prevent the strong from crushing the weak. That is the reason, and because the strong have crushed the weak the strong dominate the industry and the economic life of this country.
- Woodrow Wilson, The New Freedom: A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People (1913)
- The law isn't perfect. Neither are the people who've created it. But it's been made with the endless effort to do good.
- Takeshi Kaga as Soichiro Yagami, "Death Note: The Last Name" (2006). (author?)
- Law is the backbone which keeps man erect.
- Seymour C. Yuter, arguing for passage of the Nuclear Test Ban treaty and Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 25, No. 8 (October 1969), p. 23.
- Because of plea-bargaining, I guess we can say, "Gee, the trains run on time." But do we like where they are going?
- Franklin E. Zimring, "Law: Is Plea Bargaining a Cop-Out?", Time' (August 28, 1978).
Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations
Written laws are like spiders' webs, and will like them only entangle and hold the poor and weak, while the rich and powerful will easily break through them. ~ Anacharsis- Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 430-34.
- Ove son leggi,
Tremar non dee chi leggi non infranse.
- Where there are laws, he who has not broken them need not tremble.
- Vittorio Alfieri, Virginia, II. 1.
- Law is king of all.
- Henry Alford, School of the Heart, Lesson 6.
- Written laws are like spiders' webs, and will like them only entangle and hold the poor and weak, while the rich and powerful will easily break through them.
- Anacharsis to Solon when writing his laws.
- Law is a bottomless pit.
- John Arbuthnot, title of a pamphlet (c. 1700).
- One of the Seven was wont to say: "That laws were like cobwebs; where the small flies were caught, and the great brake through."
- Francis Bacon, Apothegms, No. 181.
- All this is but a web of the wit; it can work nothing.
- Francis Bacon, Essays on Empire.
- There was an ancient Roman lawyer, of great fame in the history of Roman jurisprudence, whom they called Cui Bono, from his having first introduced into judicial proceedings the argument, "What end or object could the party have had in the act with which he is accused."
- Edmund Burke, Impeachment of Warren Hastings.
- I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against an whole people.
- Edmund Burke, Speech on the Conciliation of America.
- A good parson once said that where mystery begins religion ends. Cannot I say, as truly at least, of human laws, that where mystery begins, justice ends?
- Edmund Burke, Vindication of Natural Society.
- The law of England is the greatest grievance of the nation, very expensive and dilatory.
- Bishop Burnet, History of His Own Times.
- The law of heaven and earth is life for life.
- Lord Byron, The Curse of Minerva, Stanza 15.
- Arms and laws do not flourish together.
- Julius Caesar, reported in Plutarch, Life of Cæsar.
- Who to himself is law, no law doth need,
Offends no law, and is a king indeed.
- George Chapman, Bussy d'Ambois, Act II, scene 1.
- Jus gentium.
- The law of nations.
- Cicero, De Officiis (44 B.C.), III. 17.
- For as the law is set over the magistrate, even so are the magistrates set over the people. And therefore, it may be truly said, "that the magistrate is a speaking law, and the law is a silent magistrate."
- Cicero, On the Laws, Book III. I.
- Silent enim leges inter arma.
- For the laws are dumb in the midst of arms.
- Cicero, Pro Milone, IV.
- After an existence of nearly twenty years of almost innocuous desuetude these laws are brought forth.
- Grover Cleveland, Message (March 1, 1886).
- Magna Charta is such a fellow that he will have no sovereign.
- Sir Edward Coke, Debate in the Commons (May 17, 1628).
- Reason is the life of the law; nay, the common law itself is nothing else but reason. * * * The law which is perfection of reason.
- Sir Edward Coke, First Institute.
- The gladsome light of jurisprudence.
- Sir Edward Coke, First Institute.
- According to the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not.
- Daniel, VI. 8.
- Trial by jury itself, instead of being a security to persons who are accused, shall be a delusion, a mockery, and a snare.
- Lord Denman, O'Connell vs. the Queen, II. C. and F., 351 (Sept. 4, 1894).
- Whatever was required to be done, the Circumlocution Office was beforehand with all the public departments in the art of perceiving — HOW NOT TO DO IT.
- Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit, Part I, Chapter X.
- "If the law supposes that," said Mr. Bumble, "the law is a ass, a idiot."
- Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist, Chapter LI.
- When the judges shall be obliged to go armed, it will be time for the courts to be closed.
- S. J. Field, when advised to arm himself, in California (1889).
- Our human laws are but the copies, more or less imperfect, of the eternal laws, so far as we can read them.
- James Anthony Froude, Short Studies on Great Subjects, Calvinism.
- Just laws are no restraint upon the freedom of the good, for the good man desires nothing which a just law will interfere with.
- James Anthony Froude, Short Studies on Great Subjects, Reciprocal Duties of State and Subject.
- Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way to the common feelings of mankind.
- Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chapter XIV, Volume I.
- Es erben sich Gesetz und Rechte
Wie eine ew'ge Krankheit fort.
- All rights and laws are still transmitted, Like an eternal sickness to the race.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, I. 4. 449.
- A cloud of witnesses.
- Hebrews, XII. 1.
- Quid leges sine moribus
Vanæ proficiunt?
- Of what use are laws, inoperative through public immorality?
- Horace, Carmina, III. 24. 35.
- To the law and to the testimony.
- Isaiah, VIII. 20.
- The law is the last result of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the benefit of the public.
- Samuel Johnson, Johnsoniana, Piozzi's Anecdotes, 58.
- Dat veniam corvis, vexat censura columbas.
- The verdict acquits the raven, but condemns the dove.
- Juvenal, Satires, II. 63.
- Ad quæstionem juris respondeant judices ad quæstionem facti respondeant juratores.
- Let the judges answer to the question of law, and the jurors to the matter of the fact.
- Law Maxim.
- Let the judges answer to the question of law, and the jurors to the matter of the fact.
- We must never assume that which is incapable of proof.
- G. H. Lewes, The Physiology of Common Life, Chapter XIII.
- Hominem improbum non accusari tutius est quam absolvi.
- It is safer that a bad man should not be accused, than that he should be acquitted.
- Livy, Annales, XXXIV. 4.
- It is safer that a bad man should not be accused, than that he should be acquitted.
- La charte sera désormais une vérité.
- The charter will henceforth be a reality.
- Louis Philippe.
- And folks are beginning to think it looks odd,
To choke a poor scamp for the glory of God.
- James Russell Lowell, A Fable for Critics, line 492.
- Perchè, cosi come i buoni costumi, per mantenersi, hanno bisogno delli leggi; cosi le leggi per ossevarsi, hanno bisogno de' buoni costumi.
- For as laws are necessary that good manners may be preserved, so there is need of good manners that laws may be maintained.
- Niccolò Machiavelli, Dei Discorsi, I. 18.
- The law is a sort of hocus-pocus science, that smiles in yeer face while it picks yeer pocket: and the glorious uncertainty of it is of mair use to the professors than the justice of it.
- Macklin, Love à la Mode, Act II, scene 1.
- Nisi per legale judicium parum suorum.
- Unless by the lawful judgment of their peers.
- Magna Charta, Privilege of Barons of Parliament.
- Certis * * * legibus omnia parent.
- All things obey fixed laws.
- Marcus Manilius, Astronomica, I, 479.
- The law speaks too softly to be heard amidst the din of arms.
- Caius Marius, when complaint was made of his granting the freedom of Rome to a thousand Camerians, in Plutarch's Life of Caius Marius.
- Render therefore unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's.
- Jesus in Matthew, XXII. 21.
- As the case stands.
- Thomas Middleton, Old Law, Act II, scene 1.
- Litigious terms, fat contentions, and flowing fees.
- John Milton, Prose Works, Volume I. Of Education.
- Le bruit des armes l'empeschoit d'entendre la voix des lois.
- The clatter of arms drowns the voice of the law.
- Michel de Montaigne, Essays, III. I.
- The clatter of arms drowns the voice of the law.
- There is no man so good, who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the laws would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.
- Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Of Vanity.
- Neque enim lex est æquior ulla,
Quam necis artifices arte perire sua.
- Nor is there any law more just, than that he who has plotted death shall perish by his own plot.
- Ovid, Ars Amatoria, I. 665.
- Sunt superis sua jura.
- The gods have their own laws.
- Ovid, Metamorphoses, IX. 499.
- Where law ends, there tyranny begins.
- William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, Case of Wilkes, speech (Jan. 9, 1770), last line.
- Nescis tu quam meticulosa res sit ire ad judicem.
- You little know what a ticklish thing it is to go to law.
- Plautus, Mostellaria, V, 1, 52.
- You little know what a ticklish thing it is to go to law.
- Non est princeps super leges, sed leges supra principem.
- The prince is not above the laws, but the laws above the prince.
- Pliny the Younger, Paneg. Traj. 65.
- The prince is not above the laws, but the laws above the prince.
- All, look up with reverential awe,
At crimes that 'scape, or triumph o'er the law.
- Alexander Pope, Epilogue to Satire, Dialogue I, line 167.
- Piecemeal they win this acre first then, that,
Glean on, and gather up the whole estate.
- Alexander Pope, Satires of Dr. Donne, Satire II, line 91.
- Once (says an Author; where, I need not say)
Two Trav'lers found an Oyster in their way;
Both fierce, both hungry; the dispute grew strong,
While Scale in hand Dame Justice pass'd along.
Before her each with clamour pleads the Laws.
Explain'd the matter, and would win the cause,
Dame Justice weighing long the doubtful Right,
Takes, open, swallows it, before their sight.
The cause of strife removed so rarely well,
"There take" (says Justice), "take ye each a shell.
We thrive at Westminster on Fools like you:
'Twas a fat oyster—live in peace—Adieu."
- Alexander Pope, Verbatim from Boileau.
- Let us consider the reasons of the case. For nothing is law that is not reason.
- Sir John Powell, Coggs v. Bernard, 2 Ld. Raym. 911.
- He that is surety for a stranger shall smart for it.
- Proverbs, XI. 15.
- That very law which moulds a tear,
And bids it trickle from its source,
That law preserves the earth a sphere,
And guides the planets in their course.
- Samuel Rogers, On a Tear, Stanza 6.
- La loi permet souvent ce que défend l'honneur.
- The law often allows what honor forbids.
- Bernard-Joseph Saurin, Spartacus, III. 3.
- The law often allows what honor forbids.
- Si judicas, cognosce; si regnas, jube.
- If you judge, investigate; if you reign, command.
- Seneca, Medea, CXCIV.
- Qui statuit aliquid, parte inaudita altera,
Æquum licet statuerit, haud æquus fuerit.
- He who decides a case without hearing the other side, though he decide justly, cannot be considered just.
- Seneca, Medea, CXCIX.
- He who decides a case without hearing the other side, though he decide justly, cannot be considered just.
- Inertis est nescire, quid liceat sibi.
Id facere, laus est, quod decet; non, quod licet.
- It is the act of the indolent not to know what he may lawfully do. It is praiseworthy to do what is becoming, and not merely what is lawful.
- Seneca, Octavia, CCCCLIII.
- There is a higher law than the Constitution.
- W. H. Seward, speech (March 11, 1850).
- Laws are generally found to be nets of such a texture, as the little creep through, the great break through, and the middle-sized alone are entangled in.
- William Shenstone, On Politics.
- When to raise the wind some lawyer tries,
Mysterious skins of parchment meet our eyes;
On speeds the smiling suit—
. . . . . .
Till stript—nonsuited—he is doomed to toss
In legal shipwreck, and redeemless loss,
Lucky, if like Ulysses, he can keep
His head above the waters of the deep.
- Horace and James Smith, Rejected Addresses, Architectural Atoms. Translation by Dr. B. T.
- Men keep their engagements when it is an advantage to both parties not to break them.
- Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.
- Jonathan Swift, Essay on the Faculties of the Mind.
- Bonis nocet quisquis pepercerit malis.
- He hurts the good who spares the bad.
- Syrus, Maxims.
- Judex damnatur cum nocens absolvitur.
- The judge is condemned when the guilty is acquitted.
- Syrus, Maxims.
- A man must not go to law because the musician keeps false time with his foot.
- Jeremy Taylor, Volume VIII, p. 145. The Worthy Communicant, Chap, IV. Sect, IV. Quoted from Schott, Adagia, p. 351. Prov. E, Suida. Cent, II. 17.
- Quod vos jus cogit, id voluntate impetret.
- What the law insists upon, let it have of your own free will.
- Terence, Adelphi, III. 4. 44.
- Jus summum sæpe summa est malitia.
- The strictest law sometimes becomes the severest injustice.
- Terence, Heauton timoroumenos, IV. 5. 48.
- The strictest law sometimes becomes the severest injustice.
- The law is good, if a man use it lawfully.
- I Timothy. I. 8.
- No man e'er felt the halter draw,
With good opinion of the law.
- John Trumbull, McFingal, Canto III, line 489.
- The Law: It has honored us, may we honor it.
- Daniel Webster, Toast at the Charleston Bar Dinner (May 10, 1847).
- The glorious uncertainty of law.
- Toast of Wilbraham at a dinner of judges and counsel at Serjeants' Inn Hall (1756). Quoted by Mr. Sheridan in 1802.
- And he that gives us in these days
New Lords may give us new laws.
- George Wither, Contented Man's Morrice.
- And through the heat of conflict keeps the law
In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw.
- William Wordsworth, Character of a Happy Warrior, line 53.
- He it was that first gave to the law the air of a science. He found it a skeleton, and clothed it with life, colour, and complexion; he embraced the cold statue, and by his touch it grew into youth, health, and beauty.
- Barry Yelverton (Lord Avonmore), on Blackstone.
The Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904)
- Quotes reported in James William Norton-Kyshe, The Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 147-157; 182
- It is my province to lay down the law. Every lawyer knows that the law is the result of a great deal of learning.
- Erie, J., Queen v. Dowling (1848), 7 St. Tr. (N. S.) 438.
- The law does not consist in particular instances, though it is explained by particular instances and rules, but the law consists of principles, which govern specific and individual cases, as they happen to arise.
- Lord Mansfield, R. v. Bembridge (1783), 22 How. St. Tr. 155.
- Law grows, and though the principles of law remain unchanged, yet (and it is one of the advantages of the common law) their application is to be changed with the changing circumstances of the times. Some persons may call this retrogression, I call it progression of human opinion.
- John Duke Coleridge, Reg. v. Ramsey (1883), 1 Cababe and Ellis' Q. B. D. Rep. 135.
- We may appeal to the experience of every sensible lawyer, whether anything can be more hazardous or discouraging than the usual entrance on the study of the law.
- Sir William Blackstone, Commentaries, Book I., Section 1, p. 16.
- I cannot say the law was ever a hard mistress to me: and she did not allow me long to languish in idleness, nor ever suffer me to be without hope. But, of course, I had many idle days, and I was rather fond of note-taking as a very instructive practice, whenever the case was an interesting one, and I found great benefit from it when the facility of taking an accurate and full note rapidly became of the greatest importance in the course of my after life at the Bar and on the Bench.
- Right Hon. Sir John T. Coleridge, "Circuit Reminiscences." The Jur. (N.S.) Vol. V. and VI., Part 2 (1869—1860), p. 377. See also post, Law Reports, 3, n.
- Reading, maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man; — and, therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning to seem to know that he doth not.
- Lord Bacon.
- Leges posteriores priores, contrarias abrogant
- Subsequent laws repeal prior contrary laws.
- 11 Co. 626.
- The truth is . . . the old feudal law existing in England ... is only being broken down slowly by legislation and decisions of the Court, and . . . still exists to a very great extent.
- Kay, J., Whitby v. Mitchell (1889), L. R. 42 C. D. 500.
- There is no positive law: Many things are bad by that, which otherwise were not.
- Lord Mansfield, Jones v. Randall (1774) Lofft. 386.
- No man can come into a British Court of justice to seek the assistance of the law who founds his claim upon a contravention of the British laws.
- Lord Alvanley, C.J., Morck v. Abel (1802), 3 Bos. and Pull. 38.
- That whom he could not by the sword destroy, he might supplant by the law.
- Hobart, C.J., Sheffeild v. Ratcliffe (1614), Lord Hobart's Rep. 335.
- Contemporaria expositio legis est optima, a contemporary exposition of a law, if there be any question about it, as our books tell us, is always the best, because the temper of the law-makers is then best known.
- Holt, C.J., Harcourt v. Fox (1693), Shower's Rep. 326.
- I am sorry to think, that Englishmen should seem to excuse themselves by ignorance of the law, which all subjects are bound to know, and are born to have the benefit of.
- Popham, C.J., Trial of Sir Christopher Blunt and others (1600), 1 How. St. Tr. 1450.
- He had no right to take the law into his own hands.
- Lord Kenyon, Tarleton v. McGawley (1795), 2 Peake, N. P. Ca. 208.
- Every one must be supposed to be cognizant of a public law.
- Lord Ellenborough, Smith v. Beadnell (1807), 1 Camp. 33.
- Every man (who is of sufficient understanding to be responsible for his actions) is supposed to be cognizant of the law, as it is the rule by which every subject of the kingdom is to be governed, and therefore it is his business to know it.
- Willes, J., King v. Shipley (1784), 3 Doug. 177.
- Every man must be taken to be cognizant of the law, otherwise there is no saying to what extent the excuse of ignorance may not be Law carried. It would be urged in almost every case.
- Lord Ellenborough, Bilbie v. Lumley (1802), 2 East, 469.
- Ignorantia juris non excusat. The true meaning of that maxim is that parties cannot excuse themselves from liability from all civil or criminal consequences of their acts by alleging ignorance of the law, but there is no presumption that parties must be taken to know all the legal consequences of their acts, and especially where difficult questions of law, or of the practice of the Court are involved.
- Lord FitzGerald, Seaton v. Seaton (1888), L. R. 13 Ap. Ca. 78.
- A mere evasion, colour, disguise and device to evade the law.
- Lord Mansfield, Sulfton v. Norton (1761), 3 Burr. Part IV., p. 1237.
- It has been said that ignorance of law is no excuse, but when the Court has a discretion the petitioner's ignorance of the law may be properly excused.
- Barnes, J., Whitworth v. Whitworth and Thomasson (1893), 62 L. J. Rep. P.C.C. (1893), p. 73.
- Very happily, the more the law is looked into, the more it appears founded in equity, reason, and good sense.
- Lord Mansfield, James v. Price (1773), Lofft. 221.
- It being a maxim that three things are always favoured in law, life, liberty and dower.
- Per. Cur., Dumsday v. Hughes (1803), 3 Bos. and Pull. 456.
- Lex est sanctio jiista jubens honesta et prohibens contraria.
Lex est summa ratio.
Ratio est anima legis.
Nulla vetita ant turpia praesumuntur, sed contraria omnia legitima ataue honesta.
The common lawe itselfe is nothing else but reason; which is to be understood of an artificiall perfection of reason, gotten by long study, observation, and of experience, and not of every man's natural reason; for nemo nascitur artifem. This legall reason est summa ratio. And therefore if all the reason that is dispersed into so many severall heads, were united into one, yet could he not make such a law as the law of England is, because by many successions of ages it hath been fined and refined by an infinite number of grave and learned men, and by long experience growne to such a perfection, for the gouvernment of this realme, as the old rule may be justly verified of it, neminem oportet esse sapientiorem legibus: no man, out of his own private reason, ought to be wiser than the law, which is the perfection of reason.
- Lord Edward Coke's Praise of the Law of England.
- It is true as a general proposition that knowledge of the law must be imputed to every person, but it would be too much to impute knowledge of this rule of equity; election as a question of intention of course implies knowledge.
- Lord Westbury, Spread v. Morgan (11 H. L. C. 602)
- The laws alone are they that always speak with all persons, high or low, in one and the same impartial voice. The law knows no favourites.
- Sir Robert Atkyns, L.C.B., Trial of Sir Edward Hales (1686), 11 How. St. Tr. 1206 n.
- The law would be a strange science if it rested solely upon Cases; and if after so large an increase of Commerce, Arts and Circumstances accruing, we must go to the time of Rich. I. to find a Case and see what is law.
- Lord Mansfield, Jones v. Randall (1774) Lofft. 386.
- It is far more important the law should be administered with absolute integrity, than that in this case or in that the law should be a good law or a bad one.
- John Duke Coleridge, Reg. v. Ramsey (1883), Cababe and Ellis' Q. B. D. Rep. 134.
- Every object and purpose of justice is effectually answered, and every supposed inconvenience is effectually rebutted by the law as it stands.
- Bayley, J., King v. Woolf (1819), 1 Chit. 423.
- Sometimes rhetorical phrases are applied even by eminent Judges to propositions of law. In Lord Dungannon v. Smith Lord Brougham in eloquent language declared it as "one of the corner stones of the law," and I understand the Lord Chancellor in the same case to have considered the decision in Jee v. Audley to be "one of the landmarks."
- Chitty, J., In re Dawson; Johnston v. Hill (1888), L. R. 39 C. D. 152.
- I cannot help thinking that where a person appeals to the Law of England, he must take his remedy according to the Law of England to which he has appealed.
- Wilmot, J., Robinson v. Bland (1760), 2 Burr. Part IV. 1084.
- The sparks of all the sciences in the world are raked up in the ashes of the law.
- Finche, L. b. 1, c. 3.
- The law is not apt to catch at actions.
- Powys, J., Ashby v. White (1703), 2 Ld. Raym. 944.
- It was nobly said in another place (I heard it with pleasure, and thought it becoming the dignity of the person who pronounced it, and the place in which it was pronounced) " that the law is best applied, when it is subservient to the honesty of the case."
- Buller, J., Master v. Miller (1791), 4 T. R. 335.
- It is of very little consequence to the public to lay down definite rules of law, if you have indefinite rules of evidence.
- Thurlow, L.C., Fox. v. Mackreth (1788), 2 Cox, 320.
- It has been sometimes said, communis error facit jus; but I say communis opinio is evidence of what the law is; not where it is an opinion merely floating and theoretical floating in the minds of persons but where it has been made the ground-work and substratum of practice.
- Lord Ellenborough, Isherwood v. Oldknow (1815), 3M. &S. (K. B. Rep.) 396, 397.
- Judges could by their resolution alter the practice, but never the law.
- Blackburn, J., Reg. v. Charlesworth (1861), 9 Cox, C. C. 67.
- Law and conscience are one and the same.
- Bacon, J., Watson v. Watson (1670), Style's Rep. 56.
- The law is for the protection of the weak more than the strong.
- Erie, J., Reg v. Woolley (1850), 4 Cox, C. C. 196.
- The law protects nothing in that very respect, in which it is, at the same time, in the eye of the law, a crime.
- Lord Mansfield, Evans v. The Chamberlain of London (1720), (App. to Furneaux's Letters), 2 Burn's Eccl. Law, 207; Harrison v. Evans (in Error) 6 Bro. P. C. 181.
- The law of England will not sanction what is inconsistent with humanity.
- Best, J., Hott v. Wilkes (1820), 4 B. & A. 319.
- The law rarely hesitates in declaring its own meaning; but the Judges are frequently puzzled to find out the meaning of others.
- Sir William Blackstone (1765), Commentaries, Book III., Chapter 25, p. 336.
- The law does not act vindictively.
- Bacon, V.-C, Barrett v. Hammond (1879), L. R. 10 C. D. 289.
- The law has respect to human infirmity.
- Best, C.J., Robertson v. McDougall (1828), 4 Bing. 679.
- We cannot judge of the fact, but the law upon the fact.
- Pratt, J., Rex v. Inhabitantes de Haughton (1718), 1 Str. Rep. 84.
- As a lawyer I am before and above all things for the supremacy of law.
- John Duke Coleridge, C.J., The Queen v. Bishop of London (1889), L. R. 23 Q. B. 452.
- A Court has no right to strain the law because it causes hardship.
- John Duke Coleridge, C.J., Body v. Halse (1891) L. R. 1 Q. B. [1892], p. 207.
- Your lordships must look hardships in the face rather than break down the rules of law.
- Lord Eldon, C, Berkeley Peerage Case (1811), 4 Camp. 419.
- I would wish to do as much as possible for you; but I cannot strain the law.
- Earl of Clonwell, L.C.J., Jackson's Case (1795), 25 How. St. Tr. 879.
- It is a principle of law, that a person intends to do that which is the natural effect of what he does.
- Lord Ellenborough, Beckwith v. Wood and another (1817), 2 Starkie, 266.
- Hard cases, it is said, make bad law.
- Lord Campbell, C.J., Ex parte Long (1854), 3 W. R. 19.
- All arguments on the hardship of a case, either on one side or the other, must be rejected, when we are pronouncing what the law is; for such arguments are only quicksands in the law, and, if indulged, will soon swallow up every principle of it.
- Buller, J., Yates v. Hall, (1785), 1 T. R. 80.
- What I desire to point out is that I wish the law was not so, but that being the law, I must follow it.
- Romer, J., Davies v. Parry (1899), 1 L. R. C. D. 605.
- There is no worse torture than the torture of laws.
- Lord Bacon, fo. edit. Vol. I. 440, 441.
- Hard cases, it has been frequently observed, are apt to introduce bad law.
- Wolfe, B., Winterbottom v. Wright (1842), 10 Meeson k Welsby, 116.
- General laws cannot give way to particular cases.
- Ashhurst, J., King v. The College of Physicians (1797), 7 T. R. 290.
- We must not, by any whimsical conceits supposed to be adapted to the altering fashions of the times, overturn the established law of the land: it descended to us as a sacred charge, and it is our duty to preserve it.
- Lord Kenyon, C.J., Clayton v. Adams (1796), 6 T. R. 605.
- We must proceed according to evidence, and forms and methods of law; they may think what they will of me, but I will always declare my mind according to my conscience.
- Wright, L.C.J., Trial of the Seven Bishops (1688), 12 How. St. Tr. 344.
- The law of England is a law of liberty.
- Lord Ellenborough, William Cobbett's Case (1804), 24 How. St. Tr. 49.
- Lex Anglite est lex misericordite. The law of England is a law of mercy.
- Coke, 2 Inst. 315.
- If the law be thought to be improper or inconvenient, application to correct it must be made elsewhere, and not to those who are bound by the repeated and solemn judgments of their predecessors.
- Buller, J., Bishop of London v. Ffytche (1800), 1 East, 495.
- No person is less disposed than I am to accommodate the law to the particular convenience of the case: but I am always glad when I find the strict law and the justice of the case going hand in hand together.
- Lord Kenyon, C.J., Peaceable v. Read and others (1801), 1 East. 573.
- I agree that is the law, though I think it is a hard law; but we have nothing to do with the question of hardship.
- Lord Esher, M.R., In re Perkins (1890), L. R. 24 Q. B. D. 618.
- Anglite jura in omni catu libertatis dant favorem: The laws of England in every case of liberty are favourable.
- Fortescue c. 42.
- What is ridiculous and absurd never is, to my mind, to be adopted either in law or in equity.
- Brett, M.R., In re Garnett; Gandy v. Macaulay (1885), L. R. 31 C. D. 9.
- I think the law is generally reasonable.
- Cotton, L.J., Bidder v. Bridges (1887), L. J. 57 C. D. 304.
- Now when a rule of law which is against principle is alleged to be established, there are two points to be considered; first of all, was any such rule of law ever laid down by any Judge? That is the first point to be decided; and secondly, if it was so laid down, has it passed into a binding rule of law ?—that is, has it been so recognised and dealt with by subsequent Judges as to prevent a Judge of a tribunal of co-ordinate jurisdiction from saying that the decision is contrary to the course of law, and is not binding upon him.
- Jessel, M.R., Henty v. Wrey (1882), L. R. 21 C. D. 340.
- The picture of law triumphant and justice prostrate, is not, I am aware, without admirers. To me it is a sorry spectacle. The spirit of justice does not reside in formalities, or words, nor is the triumph of its administration to be found in successfully picking a way between the pitfalls of technicality. After all, the law is, or ought to be, but the handmaid of justice, and inflexibility, which is the most becoming robe of the latter, often serves to render the former grotesque. But any real inroad upon the rights and opportunities for defence of a person charged with a breach of the law, whereby the certainty of justice might be imperilled, I conceive to be a matter of the highest moment.
- Lord Penzance, Combe v. Edwards (1878), L. R. 3 P. D. 142.
- Whatever disadvantages attach to a system of unwritten law, and of these we are fully sensible, it has at least this advantage, that its elasticity enables those who administer it to adapt it to the varying conditions of society, and to the requirements and habits of the age in which we live, so as to avoid the inconsistencies and injustice which arise when the law is no longer in harmony with the wants and usages and interests of the generation to which it is immediately applied.
- Cockburn, C.J., Wason v. Walter (1868), L. R. 4 Q. B. 93.
- You say well: the law of God is the law of England; and you have heard no law else, but what is consonant to the law of reason, which is the best law of God; and here is none else urged against you.
- Keble, C.J., Lilburne's Case (1649), 4 How. St. Tr. 1307.
- God made man, and gave him a law to live by; and the laws of England are grounded on the laws of God: and in the laws of England every man is concerned.
- Garmond, J., Streater's Case (1653), 5 How. St. Tr. 387.
- Personally, I detest any attempt to bring the law into maxims. Maxims are invariably wrong, that is, they are so general and large that they always include something which is not intended to be included.
- Lord Esher, M.R., Yarmouth v. France (1887), L. J. 57 Q. B. 9.
- There is no other power in England, but a legal power to punish according to law.
- Holt, C.J., Duncombe's Case (1699), 13 How. St. Tr. 1077.
- Retrospective laws are, primd facie of questionable policy, and contrary to the general principle that legislation by which the conduct of mankind is to be regulated ought, when introduced for the first time, to deal with future acts, and ought not to change the character of past transactions carried on upon the faith of the then existing law. Leges et constitutiones futuris certum est dare formam negotiis non ad facta proBterita revocari; nisi nominatim et de praiterito tempore et adhuc pendentibus negotiis cautum sit.
- Willes, J., Phillips v. Eyre (1870), L. R. 6 Q. B. 23.
- Whatever place becomes the habitation of civilized men, there the laws of decency must be inforced.
- McDonald, C.B., Rex v. Crunden (1809), 2 Camp. 89.
- There is no law whatsoever but may be dispensed with by the Supreme Law-giver; as the laws of God may be dispensed with by God himself; as it appears by God's command to Abraham, to offer up his son Isaac: so likewise the law of man may be dispensed with by the legislator, for a law may either be too wide or too narrow, and there may be many cases which may be out of the conveniences which did induce the law to be made; for it is impossible for the wisest lawmaker to foresee all the cases that may be, or are to be remedied, and therefore there must be a power somewhere, able to dispense with these laws.
- Herbert, C.J., Hale's Case (1686), 11 How. St. Tr. 1196.
- Nova constitutio futuris formam impomere debet non praeteritis: A new state of the law ought to affect the future, not the past.
- 2 Inst. 292.
- Lex prospicit non respicit: The law looks forward, not backward.
- Jenk. Cent. 284.
- Omnis nova eonstitutio futuris temporibus formam imponere debet, non prateritis: Every new enactment should affect future, not past times.
- 2 Intt. 95.
- If the law be so, there must be some just and honest reason for it, or else some universal settled rule of law upon which it is grounded.
- Holt, C.J., Coggs v. Bernard (1704), Raym. 909.
- If it is law, it will be found in our books. If it is not to be found there, it is not law.
- Camden, L.C.J., Case of Seizure of Papers (1765), 19 How. St. Tr. 1066.
- You were speaking of the laws being in other tongues; those that we try you by are in English; and we proceed in English against you; and therefore you have no cause to complain.
- Michel, J., Lilburne's Case (1649), 4 How. St. Tr. 1311.
- The laws of England will protect the rights of British subjects, and give a remedy for a grievance committed by one British subject upon another, in whatever country that may be done.
- Bayley, J., Forbes v. Cochrane and Cockburn (1824), 2 St. Tr. (N. S.) 159.
- A residence in a new country often introduces a change of legal condition, which imposes rights and obligations totally inconsistent with the former rights and obligations of the same persons.
- Lord Stowell, The Slave Grace (1827), 2 St. Tr. (N. S.) 289; 2 Hagg. 94.
- The law of nature is that which God at the time of creation of the nature of man infused into his heart, for his preservation and direction; and this is lex ceterna, the moral law, called also the law of nature. And by this law, written with the finger of God in the heart of man, were the people of God a long time governed, before the law was written by Moses, who was the first reporter or writer of law in the world.
- Lord Coke, Calvin's Case (1608), 4 Co. 21.
- De non apparentibus, et noti existentibia, eadem est ratio: Things which do not appear are to be treated as the same as those which do not exist.
- Co.
- Shew me any law for that if you can, Mr. Williams, I know you are a lawyer.
- Jefferies, L.C.J., Trial of John Hampden (1684), 9 How. St. Tr. 1057.
- Every moral man is as much bound to obey the civil law of the land as the law of nature.
- Eooke, J., Aubert v. Maze (1801), 1 Bos. & Pull. 375.
- If a man endeavours to obtain a repeal of those laws, which are conceived to be obnoxious, or the introduction of any laws which he believes to be salutary, if he does that legally, there is no objection to it.
- Bayley, J., R. v. Hunt and others (1820), 1 St. Tr. (N. S.) 484.
- The law has prescribed a particular method, and we cannot alter the law, nor prevent the inconveniences.
- Holt, C.J., Tawney's Case (1703), 2 Raym. 1013.
- Sans fact conus, est impossible de seier la ley sur cest fact: Without a known fact, it is impossible to know the law on that fact.
- Vaughan, J., Bushel's Case (1670), Jones's (Sir Thos.) Rep. 16.
- It would be of ill-consequence, to authenticate a body of laws, that have lain dormant for two hundred years.
- Foster, J., The King v. Bishop of Ely (1750), 1 Black. Rep. 59.
- It is a public scandal when the law is forced to uphold a dishonest act.
- Lord Macnaghten, Nordenfelt v. Maxim Nordenfelt &c. Co. (1894), L. R. App. Ca. Part 5, p. 573.
- Legality and oppression are not unknown to run hand in hand.
- Hawkins, J., Roberts v. Jones; Willey v. Great Northern Railway Co. (1891), L. R. 2 Q. B. [1891], p. 203.
- The law of necessity dispenses with things which otherwise are not lawful to be done.
- Per Cur.,1 Manby v. Scott (1672), 1 Levinz, 4; 2 Sm. L. C. (8th ed.) 446.
- Necessity is the law of the time and action, and things are lawful by necessity, which otherwise are not; "Quicguid necessitas cogit, defendit"; and the law of the time must regulate the law of the place in such public things.
- Edward Littleton, 1st Baron Littleton of Mounslow, in Hampden's Case (1637), 3 How. St. Tr. 927.
- Necessitas est lex temporis et loci
- Necessity is the law of time and place.
- Hale's V. C. 54
See also
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