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Men was formed for society, and is neither capable of living alone, nor has the courage to do it.

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
Society
Living
Men
Formed
Neither
Capable
Courage
Alone

More quotes by 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.
William Blackstone
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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.
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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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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Herein indeed consists the excellence of the English government, that all parts of it form a mutual check upon each other.
William Blackstone
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It is better that ten guilty persons escape than one innocent suffer.
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.
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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Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws.
William Blackstone
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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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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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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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The third absolute right, inherent in every Englishman, is that of . . . the sacred and inviolable rights of private property.
William Blackstone
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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.
William Blackstone
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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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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 law rarely hesitates in declaring its own meaning but the Judges are frequently puzzled to find out the meaning of others.
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 husband and wife are one, and that one is the husband.
William Blackstone
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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.
William Blackstone