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

William Blackstone

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William Blackstone
Age: 56 †
Born: 1723
Born: July 10
Died: 1780
Died: February 14
Barrister
Judge
Jurist
Politician
University Teacher
Writer
the City
Sir William Blackstone
Innocent
Suffer
Ten
Justice
Fairness
Suffering
Innocence
Persons
Escape
Better
Ethics
Guilty

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No enactment of man can be considered law unless it conforms to the law of God
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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.
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Herein indeed consists the excellence of the English government, that all parts of it form a mutual check upon each other.
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Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws.
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If [the legislature] will positively enact a thing to be done, the judges are not at liberty to reject it, for that were to set the judicial power above that of the legislature, which would be subversive of all government.
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The royal navy of England hath ever been its greatest defence and ornament it is its ancient and natural strength, - the floating bulwark of our island.
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Man must necessarily be subject to the laws of his Creator. This will of his Maker is called the Law of Nature. This Law of Nature is superior to any other. No human laws are of any validity if contrary to this.
William Blackstone
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Time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.
William Blackstone
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No outward doors of a man's house can in general be broken open to execute any civil process though in criminal cases the public safety supersedes the private.
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That the king can do no wrong is a necessary and fundamental principle of the English constitution.
William Blackstone
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[Self-defense is] justly called the primary law of nature, so it is not, neither can it be in fact, taken away by the laws of society.
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Man..must necessarily be subject to the laws of his Creator, for he is entirely a dependent being..And, consequently, as man depends absolutely upon his Maker for everything, it is necessary that he should in all points conform to his Maker's will.
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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 man, or one and the same body of men and wherever these two powers are united together, there can be no public liberty.
William Blackstone
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Mankind will not be reasoned out of the feelings of humanity.
William Blackstone
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The law rarely hesitates in declaring its own meaning but the Judges are frequently puzzled to find out the meaning of others.
William Blackstone
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The law, which restrains a man from doing mischief to his fellow citizens, though it diminishes the natural, increases the civil liberty of mankind.
William Blackstone
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The public good is in nothing more essentially interested, than in the protection of every individual's private rights.
William Blackstone
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By marriage the husband and wife are one person in law, that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during marriage.
William Blackstone
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Until the content of a belief is made clear, the appeal to accept the belief on faith is beside the point, for one would not know what one has accepted. The request for the meaning of a religious belief is logically prior to the question of accepting that belief on faith or to the question of whether that belief constitutes knowledge.
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Trial by jury is a privilege of the highest and most beneficial nature [and] our most important guardian both of public and private liberty. The liberties of England cannot but subsist so long as this palladium remains sacred and inviolate, not only from all open attacks, ... but also from all secret machinations, which may sap and undermine it.
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