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Law Quotes

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Law Quotes

“A large plural society cannot be governed without recognizing that, transcending its plural interests, there is a rational order with a superior common law.”

Law Order Interest Common Superiors Rational Recognizing Transcending Common Law

Book:Essays in the Public Philosophy

Source: Essays in the Public Philosophy

“But it is recognized that punishment for the abuse of the liberty accorded to the press is essential to the protection of the public, and that the common law rules that subject the libeler to responsibility for the public offense, as well as for the private injury, are not abolished by the protection extended in our constitutions. The law of criminal libel rests upon that secure foundation. There is also the conceded authority of courts to punish for contempt when publications directly tend to prevent the proper discharge of judicial functions.”

“Jurors have found, again and again, and at critical moments, according to what is their sense of the rational and just. If their sense of justice has gone one way, and the case another, they have found "against the evidence," ... the English common law rests upon a bargain between the Law and the people: The jury box is where the people come into the court: The judge watches them and the people watch back. A jury is the place where the bargain is struck. The jury attends in judgment, not only upon the accused, but also upon the justice and the humanity of the Law.”

“The invention of writs was really the making of the English Common Law; and the credit of this momentous achievement, which took place chiefly between 1150 and 1250, must be shared between the officials of the royal Chancery, who framed new forms, and the royal judges, who either allowed them or quashed them.”

Form Law Common Judging Achievement Credit Invention Officials Royal Framed Common Law

Book:A Short History of English Law: From the Earliest Times to the End of the Year 1919

Source: A Short History of English Law: From the Earliest Times to the End of the Year 1919

“The common law of chattels, that is to say, the law ultimately adopted by the King's courts for the regulation of disputes about the ownership and possession of goods, was, to be a substantial extent, a by-product of that new procedure which had been mainly introduced to perfect the feudal scheme of land law.”

Law Perfect Common Land Products Kings Court Possession Goods Regulation Ownership Schemes Adopted Disputes Procedures Common Law

Book:A Short History of English Law: From the Earliest Times to the End of the Year 1919

Source: A Short History of English Law: From the Earliest Times to the End of the Year 1919

“It was natural that the direct wielders of the royal prerogative, men who sat in the Star Chamber and the Privy Council, who knew the secrets of the State and the necessity for prompt action, should despise the merely declaratory character of a good deal of Common Law process. To them we doubtless owe those four great pillars of Chancery jurisdiction, the injunction, the decree, the sequestration, and the commission of rebellion.”

Source: A Short History of English Law: From the Earliest Times to the End of the Year 1919

“Certainty is the mother of repose, and therefore the common law aims at certainty.”

Law Mother Common Aim Certainty Mischief Repose Common Law

Author:Philip Yorke, 1st Earl of Hardwicke