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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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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
Open
Criminals
Public
Civil
Though
Safety
Process
Private
House
General
Supersedes
Home
Doors
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Men
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Outward
Cases
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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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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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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.
William Blackstone
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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.
William Blackstone
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The public good is in nothing more essentially interested, than in the protection of every individual's private rights.
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.
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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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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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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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Men was formed for society, and is neither capable of living alone, nor has the courage to do 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.
William Blackstone
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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.
William Blackstone
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Free men have arms slaves do not.
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
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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 husband and wife are one, and that one is the husband.
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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.
William Blackstone
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Time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.
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.
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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