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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.

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
Primaries
Fact
Primary
Facts
Defense
Away
Neither
Nature
Laws
Self
Called
Law
Taken
Justly

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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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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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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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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 husband and wife are one, and that one is the husband.
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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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Mankind will not be reasoned out of the feelings of humanity.
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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 Bible has always been regarded as part of the Common Law of England.
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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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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 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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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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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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Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws.
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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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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 third absolute right, inherent in every Englishman, is that of . . . the sacred and inviolable rights of private property.
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