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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
Better
Ethics
Guilty
Innocent
Suffer
Ten
Justice
Fairness
Suffering
Innocence
Persons
Escape

More quotes by William Blackstone

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Every wanton and causeless restraint of the will of the subject, whether practiced by a monarch, a nobility, or a popular assembly, is a degree of tyranny.
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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.
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There is nothing which so generally strikes the imagination and engages the affections of mankind, as the right of property.
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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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Mankind will not be reasoned out of the feelings of humanity.
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The third absolute right, inherent in every Englishman, is that of . . . the sacred and inviolable rights of private property.
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Time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.
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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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No enactment of man can be considered law unless it conforms to the law of God
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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.
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The husband and wife are one, and that one is the husband.
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The public good is in nothing more essentially interested, than in the protection of every individual's private rights.
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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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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 more merciful in general, yet properly intermixed with due distinctions of severity.
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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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The most universal and effectual way of discovering the true meaning of law, when the words are dubious, is by considering the reason and spirit of it or the cause which moved the legislator to enact it. for when this reason ceased, the law itself ought likewise to cease with it.
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.
William Blackstone
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The Bible has always been regarded as part of the Common Law of England.
William Blackstone
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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 be helped and improved by assistance drawn from other arts.
William Blackstone
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Free men have arms slaves do not.
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