Edward Coke Quotes - Page 2

Corporations cannot commit treason, nor be outlawed, nor excommunicated, for they have no souls.

For a man's house is his castle.

You should trust any man in his own art provided he is skilled in it.

Reason is the life of the law.

For a man's house is his castle, et domus sua cuique tutissimum refugium [and one's home is the safest refuge to everyone].

That Francis Bacon retains his reputation gained, is not strange to any that knows him. The unusual words wherewith he had spangled his speech, were rather gracious for their propriety than strange for their novelty, and like to serve both for occasions to report and means to remember his argument. Certain sentences of his , somewhat obscure, and as it were presuming upon their capacities will, I fear, make some of them rather admire than commend him. In sum, all is as well as words can make it, and if it please Her Majesty to add deeds, the Bacon may be too hard for the Cook.

The agreement of the parties cannot make that good which the law maketh void.

Six hours in sleep, in law's grave study six,Four spend in prayer, the rest on Nature fix.

Precaution is better than a cure.

A word must become a friend or you will not understand it. Perhaps you do well to be cool and detached when you are seeking information, but I remind you of the wife who complained, 'When I ask John if he loves me, he thinks I am asking for information'.

It is better, saith the law, to suffer a mischief that is peculiar to one, than an inconvenience that may prejudice many.

Common law is common right.

None shall take advantage of his own wrong.

The law compells no man to impossible things. The argument ab impossibili is forcible in law.

Fraud and deceit abound in these days more than in former times.

Things are worth what they will fetch at a sale

The law doth never enforce a man to doe a vaine thing.

It is a fiction, a shade, a nonentity, but a reality for legal purposes. A corporation aggregate is only in abstracto—it is invisible, immortal, and rests only in intendment and consideration of the law.

In the meane time know this, that the learning of warranties is one of the most curious and cunning learnings of the law, and of great use and consequence.

For when the law doth give any thing to one, it giveth impliedly whatsoever is necessary for the taking and enjoying of the same.

There must have been good grounds for belief in witchcraft; otherwise Parliament would not have legislated against it.

And the law, that is the perfection of reason, cannot suffer anything that is inconvenient.

Certainty is the mother of quiet and repose, and uncertainty the cause of variance and contentions

A witch is a person who hath conference with the Devil to consult with him or to do some act.

A thing which is not in esse but in apparent expectancy is regarded in law.