Quotes from WILLIAM BLACKSTONE

If man were to live in a state of nature, unconnected with other individuals, there would be no occasion for any other laws, than the law of nature, and the law of God. Neither could any other law possibly exist; for a law always supposes some superior who is to make it; and in a state of nature we are all equal, without any other superior but him who is the author of our being.

It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.

The principal aim of society is to protect individuals in the enjoyment of those absolute rights, which were vested in them by the immutable laws of nature.

The right of personal security consists in a person's legal and uninterrupted enjoyment of his life, his limbs, his body, his health, and his reputation.

To deny the possibility, nay, the actual existence of witchcraft and sorcery, is at once flatly to contradict the revealed word of God in various passages both of the Old and New Testament, and the thing itself is a Truth to which every nation in the world hath, in its turn, borne testimony, by either example seemingly well attested or by prohibitory laws, which at least suppose the possibility of a commerce with evil spirits.

There is nothing which so generally strikes the imagination and engages the affections of mankind, as the right of property; of that sole and despotic dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in total exclusion of the right of any other individual in the universe.

Acts of parliament that are impossible to be performed are of no validity; and if there arise out of them collaterally any absurd consequences, manifestly contradictory to common reason, they are, with regard to those collateral consequences, void.

A lunatic is indeed properly one that hath lucid intervals; sometimes enjoying his senses, and sometimes not, and that frequently depending upon the change of the moon.

If words happen to be still dubious, we may establish their meaning from the context; with which it may be of singular use to compare a word, or a sentence, whenever they are ambiguous, equivocal, or intricate.

The most universal and effectual way of discovering the true meaning of a law, when the words are dubious, is by considering the reason and spirit of it.

A monster, which hath not the shape of mankind, but in any part evidently bears the resemblance of the brute creation, hath no inheritable blood, and cannot be heir to any blood, albeit it be brought forth in marriage.

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 for the general good of the whole community.

Men was formed for society, and is neither capable of living alone, nor has the courage to do it.

And, lastly, to vindicate these rights, when actually violated and attacked, the subjects of England are entitled, in the first place, to the regular administration and free course of justice in the courts of law; next to the right of petitioning the king and parliament for redress of grievances; and, lastly, to the right of having and using arms for self preservation and defense.

Law is the embodiment of the moral sentiment of the people.

Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws.

The public good is in nothing more essentially interested, than in the protection of every individual's private rights.

Herein indeed consists the excellence of the English government, that all parts of it form a mutual check upon each other.

Mankind will not be reasoned out of the feelings of humanity.

There is nothing which so generally strikes the imagination and engages the affections of mankind, as the right of property.

Men was formed for society, and is neither capable of living alone, nor has the courage to do it.

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 for the general good of the whole community.

The husband and wife are one, and that one is the husband.

It is better that ten guilty escape than one innocent suffer.