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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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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
General
Merciful
Amending
Crime
Crimes
Indiscriminately
Effects
Properly
Punishments
Especially
Dues
Afflicted
Hell
Distinction
Distinctions
Less
Manners
Severity
People
Punishment
Unreasonable
Effect
Preventing

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The husband and wife are one, and that one is the husband.
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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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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.
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Law is the embodiment of the moral sentiment of the people.
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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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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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Time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.
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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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Mankind will not be reasoned out of the feelings of humanity.
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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.
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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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Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws.
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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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No enactment of man can be considered law unless it conforms to the law of God
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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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There is nothing which so generally strikes the imagination and engages the affections of mankind, as the right of property.
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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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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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That the king can do no wrong is a necessary and fundamental principle of the English constitution.
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