William Blackstone Quotes - Page 2

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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

  Home, Men, Doors

  Sir William Blackstone (1869). “The Student's Blackstone: Commentaries on the Laws of England, in Four Books”, p.508

  9 Copy quote

• 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

  Men, Law, Two

  Commentaries on the Laws of England bk. 1, ch. 2 (1765)

  9 Copy quote

• Law, in its most general and comprehensive sense, signifies a rule of action; and is applied indiscriminately to all kinds of action, whether animate, or inanimate, rational or irrational. Thus we say, the laws of motion, of gravitation, of optics, or mechanics, as well as the laws of nature and of nations. And it is that rule of action, which is prescribed by some superior, and which the inferior is bound to obey.

  William Blackstone

  Law, Optics, Action

  Sir William Blackstone, Edward Christian, John Frederick Archbold, Joseph Chitty (1827). “Commentaries on the Laws of England”, p.25

  54 Copy quote

• 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

  Law, Dubious, Way

  William Blackstone (2016). “Commentaries on the Laws of England: Of the Rights of People”, p.47, Oxford University Press

  5 Copy quote

• Herein indeed consists the excellence of the English government, that all parts of it form a mutual check upon each other.

  William Blackstone

  Government, Political, Excellence

  William Blackstone, Robert Kerr (1873). “Commentaries on the Laws of England in Four Books by William Blackstone; Abridged and Adapted to the Present State of the Law by Robert Malcolm Kerr”, p.25

  7 Copy quote

• The doctrines thus delivered we call the revealed or divine law, and they are to be found only in the holy scriptures.. are found upon comparison to be really part of the original law of nature. Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws; that is to say, no human laws should be suffered to contradict these.

  William Blackstone

  Law, Two, Foundation

  William Blackstone (2016). “The Oxford Edition of Blackstone's: Commentaries on the Laws of England: Book I: Of the Rights of Persons”, p.124, Oxford University Press

  18 Copy quote

• To deny the possibility, nay, the actual existence of witchcraft and sorcery, is at once flatly to contradict the revealed word of God in various passages both of the Old and New Testament, and the thing itself is a Truth to which every nation in the world hath, in its turn, borne testimony, by either example seemingly well attested or by prohibitory laws, which at least suppose the possibility of a commerce with evil spirits.

  William Blackstone

  Law, Evil, Sorcery

  William Blackstone (2016). “Commentaries on the Laws of England - Of Public Wrongs”, p.39, Oxford University Press

  23 Copy quote

• Mankind will not be reasoned out of the feelings of humanity.

  William Blackstone

  Feelings, Humanity, Mankind

  Sir William Blackstone, John Fletcher Hargrave, George Sweet, Sir Richard Couch, William Newland Welsby (1852). “Commentaries on the Laws of England : in Four Books, with an Analysis of the Work”, p.246

  20 Copy quote

• The third absolute right, inherent in every Englishman, is that of . . . the sacred and inviolable rights of private property.

  William Blackstone

  Rights, Sacred, Englishmen

  6 Copy quote

• The law rarely hesitates in declaring its own meaning; but the Judges are frequently puzzled to find out the meaning of others.

  William Blackstone

  Law, Judging, Declaring

  Sir William Blackstone, John Fletcher Hargrave, George Sweet, Sir Richard Couch, William Newland Welsby (1852). “Commentaries on the Laws of England: In Four Books : with an Analysis of the Work”, p.303

  7 Copy quote

• There is nothing which so generally strikes the imagination and engages the affections of mankind, as the right of property.

  William Blackstone

  Imagination, Affection, Strikes

  Sir William Blackstone, Edward Christian, John Frederick Archbold, Joseph Chitty (1827). “Commentaries on the Laws of England”

  11 Copy quote

• There is nothing which so generally strikes the imagination, and engages the affections of mankind, as the right of property; or that sole and despotic dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in total exclusion of the right of any other individual in the universe. And yet there are very few, that will give themselves the trouble to consider the original and foundation of this right.

  William Blackstone

  Exercise, Men, Imagination

  William Blackstone (2016). “The Oxford Edition of Blackstone's: Commentaries on the Laws of England: Book II: Of the Rights of Things”, p.57, Oxford University Press

  8 Copy quote

• 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

  Strength, Islands, Royal Wedding

  Commentaries on the Laws of England bk. 1, ch. 13 (1765)

  86 Copy quote

• Time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.

  William Blackstone

  Time, Memories, Men

  Commentaries on the Laws of England introduction, sec. 3 (1765)

  4 Copy quote

• Of crimes injurious to the persons of private subjects, the most principal and important is the offense of taking away that life, which is the immediate gift of the great creator; and which therefore no man can be entitled to deprive himself or another of, but in some manner either expressly commanded in, or evidently deducible from, those laws which the creator has given us; the divine laws, I mean, of either nature or revelation.

  William Blackstone

  Mean, Men, Law

  Sir William Blackstone, Joseph Chitty, Edward Christian, John Eykyn Hovenden, Thomas Lee (1861). “Commentaries on the laws of England: in four books, with an analysis of the work”

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  Religious, Atheism, Belief

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  Fall, Gambling, May

  Sir William Blackstone (1841). “Commentaries on the laws of England: in four books ; with an analysis of the work”

  5 Copy quote

• 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

  Art, Science, Branches

  Sir William Blackstone (1860). “Commentaries on the Laws of England: In Four Books”, p.19

  4 Copy quote

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