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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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William Blackstone
Age: 56 †
Born: 1723
Born: July 10
Died: 1780
Died: February 14
Barrister
Judge
Jurist
Politician
University Teacher
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the City
Sir William Blackstone
Human
Necessarily
Humans
Contrary
Must
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Men
Laws
Maker
Subjects
Makers
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More quotes by 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.
William Blackstone
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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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Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws.
William Blackstone
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Free men have arms slaves do not.
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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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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The husband and wife are one, and that one is the husband.
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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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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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 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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Time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.
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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Law is the embodiment of the moral sentiment of the people.
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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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 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 third absolute right, inherent in every Englishman, is that of . . . the sacred and inviolable rights of private 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.
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