Quote

Ignorance of the law excuses no man not that all men know the law, but because 'tis an excuse every man will plead, and no man can tell how to refute him.

John Selden

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

John Selden
Age: 69 †
Born: 1584
Born: December 16
Died: 1654
Died: November 30
Jurist
Politician
Writer
Men
Refute
Plead
Excuses
Excuse
Ignorance
Law
Tell
Every

More quotes by John Selden

Image
Old friends are best. King James used to call for his old shoes they were the easiest for his feet.
John Selden
Image
Pleasure is nothing else but the intermission of pain.
John Selden
Image
Pride may be allowed to this or that degree, else a man cannot keep up dignity. In gluttony there must be eating, in drunkenness there must be drinking 'tis not the eating, and 'tis not the drinking that must be blamed, but the excess. So in pride.
John Selden
Image
Humility is a virtue all preach, none practice and yet everybody is content to hear.
John Selden
Image
The world cannot be governed without juggling.
John Selden
Image
While you are upon earth, enjoy the good things that are here (to that end were they given), and be not melancholy, and wish yourself in heaven.
John Selden
Image
The clergy would have us believe them against our own reason, as the woman would have her husband against his own eyes.
John Selden
Image
Those that govern most make least noise.
John Selden
Image
Marriage is a desperate thing.
John Selden
Image
Opinion is something wherein I go about to give reasons why all the world should think as I think.
John Selden
Image
Nothing is text but what is spoken of in the Bible and meant there for person and place the rest is application which a discreet man may do well but it is his scripture, not the Holy Ghost's. First, in your sermons use your logic, and then your rhetoric rhetoric without logic is like a tree with leaves and blossoms, but no root.
John Selden
Image
The House of Commons is called the Lower House, in twenty Acts of Parliament but what are twenty Acts of Parliament amongst Friends?
John Selden
Image
The law against witches does not prove there be any but it punishes the malice of those people that use such means to take away men's lives.
John Selden
Image
Scrutamini scripturas (Let us look at the scriptures). These two words have undone the world.
John Selden
Image
Prayer should be short, without giving God Almighty reasons why he should grant this, or that he knows best what is good for us.
John Selden
Image
Prayer should be short, without giving God Almighty reasons why He should grant this or that He knows best wheat is good for us. If your boy should ask you for a suit of clothes and give you reasons, would you endure it? You know his needs better than he let him ask for a suit of clothes.
John Selden
Image
No man is the wiser for his learning
John Selden
Image
Idolatry is in a man's own thought, not in the opinion of another.
John Selden
Image
More solid things do not show the complexion of the times so well as Ballads and Libels.
John Selden
Image
Thou little thinkest what a little foolery governs the world.
John Selden