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

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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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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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The public good is in nothing more essentially interested, than in the protection of every individual's private rights.
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Men was formed for society, and is neither capable of living alone, nor has the courage to do it.
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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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Law is the embodiment of the moral sentiment of the people.
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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 husband and wife are one, and that one is the husband.
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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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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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The third absolute right, inherent in every Englishman, is that of . . . the sacred and inviolable rights of private property.
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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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The Bible has always been regarded as part of the Common Law of England.
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Free men have arms slaves do not.
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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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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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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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That the king can do no wrong is a necessary and fundamental principle of the English constitution.
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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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