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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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William Blackstone
Age: 56 †
Born: 1723
Born: July 10
Died: 1780
Died: February 14
Barrister
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Jurist
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the City
Sir 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.
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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.
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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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There is nothing which so generally strikes the imagination and engages the affections of mankind, as the right of 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 third absolute right, inherent in every Englishman, is that of . . . the sacred and inviolable rights of private property.
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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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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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Time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.
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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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Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws.
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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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Free men have arms slaves do not.
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Mankind will not be reasoned out of the feelings of humanity.
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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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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. 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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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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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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