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

More quotes by 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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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.
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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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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.
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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.
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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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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.
William Blackstone
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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.
William Blackstone
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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.
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Gaming is a kind of tacit confession that the company engaged therein do in general exceed the bounds of their respective fortunes, and therefore they cast lots to determine upon whom the ruin shall at present fall, that the rest may be saved a little longer.
William Blackstone
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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.
William Blackstone
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Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws.
William Blackstone
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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.
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.
William Blackstone
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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.
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.
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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Time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.
William Blackstone
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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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Law is the embodiment of the moral sentiment of the people.
William Blackstone