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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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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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Free men have arms slaves do not.
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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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Men was formed for society, and is neither capable of living alone, nor has the courage to do it.
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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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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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Mankind will not be reasoned out of the feelings of humanity.
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Time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.
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No enactment of man can be considered law unless it conforms to the law of God
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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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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 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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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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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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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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That the king can do no wrong is a necessary and fundamental principle of the English constitution.
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It is better that ten guilty persons escape than one innocent suffer.
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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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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.
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