Top 100 Quotes About Common Law
#1. A large plural society cannot be governed without recognizing that, transcending its plural interests, there is a rational order with a superior common law.
Walter Lippmann
#2. The major way that society has come to agree on the rules of property is through the growth of common law, though more recently legislation has played an increasing role.
Milton Friedman
#3. The common law existed while the Anglo-Saxons were yet pagans, at a time when they had never yet heard the name of Christ pronounced or knew that such a character existed.
Thomas Jefferson
#4. It is a common law of nature, which no time will ever change, that superiors shall rule their inferiors.
Dionysius Of Halicarnassus
#5. By the English common law, her husband was her lord and master. He had the custody of her person, and of her minor children. He could 'punish her with astick no bigger than his thumb,' and she could not complain against him.
Harriet Hanson Robinson
#6. The California supreme court, following the English common-law, decided that the owner of land bordering a watercourse was entitled only to the usufruct of the water; that if he used it he must return it to its original course unimpaired in quality and undiminished in volume.
Jerome Hart
#7. Our lady the Common Law is a very wise old lady though she still has something to learn in telling what she knows.
Frederick Pollock
#8. It will come as no surprise to anybody to know that I support the traditional definition of marriage as a union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others, as expressed in our traditional common law.
Stephen Harper
#9. Under the common law, one of the more controversial rules is the 'no duty to rescue rule' that says that, if you were not responsible for placing someone in danger or risk, you have no obligation to help them, even when it would cost little to save their life.
Jonathan Turley
#10. Louisiana commenced her existence as a state under a code of laws differing from all the other states which were founded on the common law, in that its code, a new one, was founded mainly on the Civil Law and the Code Napoleon of France.
Samuel Freeman Miller
#11. A judge at common law may be an ordinary man; a good judge of a carpet must be a genius.
Edgar Allan Poe
#12. Hanging may seem barbarous, but the greater barbarity lies in the slow abandonment of our common law traditions.
Michael Gove
#13. The Talmud is to this day the circulating heart's blood of the Jewish religion. Whatever laws, customs or ceremonies we observe-whether we are orthodox, conservative, reform or merely spasmodic sentimentalists-we follow the Talmud. It is our common Law.
Herman Wouk
#14. In suits at common law, trial by jury in civil cases is as essential to secure the liberty of the people as any one of the pre-existent rights of nature.
James Madison
#15. Evolution under uniform conditions pleased every one
except curates and bishops; it was the very best substitute for religion; a safe, conservative, practical, thoroughly Common-Law deity.
Henry Adams
#16. He was teaching the common-law rule against perpetuities, which limits how far into the future a will can control a line of inheritance.
Sonia Sotomayor
#17. Trying to replace the common law with a rationally designed law is, he jests, like trying to design a better rhinoceros in a laboratory.
Matt Ridley
#18. This provision (the 4th Amendment) speaks for itself. Its plain object is to secure the perfect enjoyment of that great right of the common law, that a man's house shall be his own castle, privileged against all civil and military intrusion.
Joseph Story
#19. I'm marrying my common-law wife, Beth, the Christian way, with a preacher and all that.
Duane Chapman
#20. Let there be then no coercion established in society, and the common law of gravity prevailing, the sexes will fall into their proper places.
Judith Sargent Murray
#21. In walking through the world there is a choice for a man to make. He can choose the fair and open path, the path which sound ethics, sound democracy, and the common law prescribe, or choose the secret way by which he can get the better of his fellow man.
Ida Tarbell
#22. Instead, she found her argument in the "doctrine of necessity," an idea established in common law that in certain limited circumstances, which no parliament would ever care to define, it was permissible to break the criminal law to prevent a greater evil.
Ian McEwan
#23. And of course we are familiar with the English common law rule of thumb that said a man could in fact use a stick no bigger than his thumb to discipline his wife and family.
Patricia Ireland
#24. Reason is the life of the law; nay, the common law itself is nothing else but reason - the law which is perfection of reason.
Edward Coke
#25. No one familiar with the common law of England can read the Constitution of the United States without observing the great desire of the Convention which framed that instrument to make it conform as far as possible with that law.
Samuel Freeman Miller
#26. Nothing is better settled at the common law than the doctrine that the children, even of aliens, born in a country, while the parents reside there under the protection of the government, and owing a temporary allegiance thereto, are subjects by birth.
St. George Tucker
#27. Our common law is the stock instance of a combination of custom and its successive adaptations.
Learned Hand
#28. It cannot be assumed that equity was following common law whenever they agreed, any more than the converse.
Frederick Pollock
#29. There never has been a period of history, in which the Common Law did not recognize Christianity as lying at its foundation.
Joseph Story
#30. The Common Law of England has been laboriously built about a mythical figure-the figure of 'The Reasonable Man'.
A.P. Herbert
#31. The Bible has always been regarded as part of the Common Law of England.
William Blackstone
#32. The supremacy of Parliament and the embedding of property rights in Common Law put political power in the hands of men anxious to exploit the new economic opportunities and provided the framework for a judicial system to protect and encourage productive economic activity
Douglass North
#33. He'd been going out with his right hand for so long they were practically common law spouses.
Avery Flynn
#34. 'Pnin' by Vladimir Nabokov, which is a literally small book, fit right in my common law book. I would sit in class and read it.
Elizabeth Strout
#38. The common law is not a brooding omnipresence in the sky, but the articulate voice of some sovereign or quasi sovereign that can be identified; although some decisions with which I have disagreed seem to me to have forgotten the fact.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
#39. 2. We must never cease to proclaim in fearless tones the great principles of freedom and the rights of man which through Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus, trial by jury, and the English common law find their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence.
Winston S. Churchill
#40. Iniquum est collapsis manum non porrigere: commune hoc ius generis humani est
(It is wrong not to stretch out your hand to the fallen: that is a common law of the human race)
Seneca.
#41. The common law of this state held man and wife to be one person, but that person was the husband.
Harriet Hanson Robinson
#42. If slavery be a sin, it is not yours. It does not rest on your action for its origin, on your consent for its existence. It is a common law right to property in the service of man; its origin was Divine decree.
Jefferson Davis
#43. In Italy we have not a Common law legal system, we have a stupid one instead!
Carl William Brown
#44. We've got gays working there. If they can demonstrate long-term relationships, we make same-sex benefits available just as we do with common-law marriages. Gays are productive people. Some fly airplanes, some work in breweries.
Pete Coors
#45. I verily believe Christianity necessary to the support of civil society. One of the beautiful boasts of our municipal jurisprudence is that Christianity is a part of the Common Law ... There never has been a period in which the Common Law did not recognize Christianity as lying its foundations.
Joseph Story
#46. As we have seen, the first public expression of disenchantment with nonviolence arose around the question of 'self-defense.' In a sense this is a false issue, for the right to defend one's home and one's person when attacked has been guaranteed through the ages by common law.
Martin Luther King Jr.
#47. I expect from our judges that their verdicts are also inspired by Talmudic law - and not only by common law or European justice systems.
Ayelet Shaked
#48. Law grows, and though the principles of law remain unchanged, yet (and it is one of the advantages of the common law) their application is to be changed with the changing circumstances of the times. Some persons may call this retrogression, I call it progression of human opinion.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
#49. Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.
Thomas Jefferson
#50. The destinies of the two races in this country are indissolubly linked together, and the interests of both require that the common government of all shall not permit the seeds of race hate to be planted under the sanction of law.
Bobby Scott
#51. The G7 and former G8 group has always viewed itself as a community of values, the annexation of Crimea, which is a blatant violation of the principles of international law, and the events in eastern Ukraine are serious violations of these common values.
Angela Merkel
#52. The general rule of law is, that the noblest of human productions -- knowledge, truths ascertained, conceptions, and ideas -- become, after voluntary communication to others, free as the air to common use."
~Louis D. Brandeis
Louis D. Brandeis
#53. The Common lawes of the Realme should by no means be delayed for the law is the surest sanctuary, that a man should take, and the strongest fortresse to protect the weakest of all, lex et tutissima cassis.
Edward Coke
#55. Resignation is, to some extent, spoiled for me by the fact that it is so entirely conformable to the laws of common-sense. I should like just a little more of the supernatural in the practice of my favorite virtue.
Sophie Swetchine
#56. My own definition of leadership is this: The capacity and the will to rally men and women to a common purpose and the character which inspires confidence.
Bernard Law Montgomery
#57. Generation by male and female is a law common to animals and plants.
Herman Boerhaave
#58. Ammi would give me no added particulars of this scene, but the shape in the comer does not reappear in his tale as a moving object. There are things which cannot be mentioned, and what is done in common humanity is sometimes cruelly judged by the law.
H.P. Lovecraft
#59. If you were against slavery in 1840 and a white person, you would have been against the law, the Bible, your church, your pastor, your parents, common sense, tradition, everything. You would have been against everything.
Bill Ayers
#60. This is the way to cultivate courage: First, by standing firm on some conscientious principle, some law of duty. Next, by being faithful to truth and right on small occasions and common events. Third, by trusting in God for help and power.
James Freeman Clarke
#62. But I would still reply, that the knavery and folly of men are such common phenomena, that I should rather believe the most extraordinary events to arise from their concurrence, than admit of so signal a violation of the laws of nature
David Hume
#63. Just as you should never confuse the law with common justice, intelligence should not be confused with common sense. Some of the brightest people in the world have no idea how to cross the road.
Terry Wogan
#64. Our leaders will serve the common good with better laws and better actions only when we serve it first, by casting better votes.
Alan Keyes
#65. Women are a sisterhood. They make common cause in behalf of the sex; and, indeed, this is natural enough, when we consider the vast power that the law gives us over them.
William Cobbett
#66. To this war of every man against every man, this also in consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law, where no law, no injustice. Force, and fraud, are in war the cardinal virtues.
Thomas Hobbes
#67. When preparing your return, you should be sure to avoid common mistakes. The two most common taxpayer mistakes, states the IRS booklet, are (1) "failure to include a current address," and (2) "failure to be a large industry that gives humongous contributions to key tax-law-writing congresspersons."
Dave Barry
#68. In a composite nation like ours, as before the law, there should be no rich, no poor, no high, no low, no white, no black, but common country, common citizenship, equal rights and a common destiny.
Frederick Douglass
#69. Above all, I would teach him to tell the truth Truth-telling, I have found, is the key to responsible citizenship. The thousands of criminals I have seen in 40 years of law enforcement have had one thing in common: Every single one was a liar.
J. Edgar Hoover
#71. Most people never question the core beliefs they grow up with," Emil confirmed. "You can look back on any culture five hundred years later and wonder how they could have ever believed some of the contradictory or flat-out insane things they accepted as law or common sense.
Elliott James
#72. Convergence of technology and the judicial system is the need-of-the-hour. We need to go digital and adopt online analysis of legal cases. Dissemination of legal knowledge to the common man will also a go a long way in improving the law and order situation in the country.
Narendra Modi
#73. Judicials of common [or general] equity are such as are made according to the law or instinct of nature common to all men: and these in respect of their substance, bind the consciences not only of the Jews but also of the Gentiles
William Perkins
#74. We are all bound thither; we are hastening to the same common goal. Black death calls all things under the sway of its laws.
[Lat., Tendimus huc omnes; metam properamus ad unam. Omnia sub leges mors vocat atra suas.]
Ovid
#75. Common sense is the foundation of all authorities, of the laws themselves, and of their construction.
Thomas Jefferson
#76. Timothy Batten is an individual of high integrity and has given many years of service to Georgia and to the United States, .. His common sense dedication to the rule of law, intellect and experience make him a solid candidate for the federal bench in North Georgia.
Saxby Chambliss
#77. 'Catholic writer' seems like you have an agenda of evangelization, as if you were somehow influenced in your choice of perspective by dogma or canon law. That has nothing to do with me. I don't have a lot in common with other 'Catholic' writers.
Mary Gordon
#78. That part of the judicial law which
was typical of Christ's government
has ceased, but that part which is of
common and general equity remains
still in force. It is a common maxim:
those judgments which are common
and natural are moral and perpetual.
Samuel Bolton
#79. Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything mean everything or nothing at pleasure.
Thomas Jefferson
#80. All my tales are based on the fundamental premise that common human laws and interests and emotions have no validity or significance in the vast cosmos-at-large.
H.P. Lovecraft
#81. Those who live not by law would be justified by Custom: but, as common practice is the worst teacher that ever was, so the truth and goodness of things is not to be estimated by the entertainment and acceptance they find in the world.
Benjamin Whichcote
#82. Death is beautiful when seen to be a law, and not an accident. It is as common as life.
Henry David Thoreau
#83. Crack had a social logic to it, a specific kind of reasoning that drew from a vast well of common experience for its symbolic resonance. Crack stood for pain and power, chaos and order, the truth behind the lie. Crack was a sociolegal logic grounded in blood.
Dimitri A. Bogazianos
#84. It is the common peoples duty to police the police.
Steven Magee
#85. Where there is no common power, there is no law
Thomas Hobbes
#86. Order is Heaven's first law; and this confessed, some are, and must be, greater than the rest, more rich, more wise; but who infers from hence that such are happier, shocks all common sense. Condition, circumstance, is not the thing; bliss is the same in subject or in king.
Alexander Pope
#87. Interfering, judgmental, and disrespectful mothers-in-law are common complaints.
Emily Yoffe
#88. Nora had worked as a telegraphist at the Taunton Post Office and learned Morse code from her mother-in-law, accumulating valuable experience on the two common telegraphic instruments: the single needle and the
Neil McAleer
#89. We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law!
Arthur Miller
#90. Abused in this way, law becomes a tool - both domestically and internationally - by which the powerful can coerce and control the powerless, rather than a system for ensuring that all are subjected to common rules. Nowhere
Glenn Greenwald
#92. A liberty subject to law and subordinate to the common welfare.
Bainbridge Colby
#93. Below the 40th latitude there is no law; below the 50th no god; below the 60th no common sense and below the 70th no intelligence whatsoever.
Kim Stanley
#94. We must do everything in our power to keep families together, and to use common sense in our immigration laws. Children deserve better than to lose a parent because of an inflexible law.
Jose Serrano
#95. Making improvements to our background check system and cracking down on illegal gun trafficking are common-sense ways to prevent violence without punishing law abiding gun owners. We owe it to the American people to take real action to reduce gun violence in our communities.
Martin Heinrich
#96. And from this followeth another law: that such things as cannot
be divided be enjoyed in common, if it can be; and if the quantity
of the thing permit, without stint; otherwise proportionably to the
number of them that have right.
Thomas Hobbes
#97. There is nothing more hostile to a city that a tyrant, under whom in the first and chiefest place, there are not laws in common, but one man, keeping the law himself to himself, has the sway, and this is no longer equal.
Euripides
#98. Law is nothing other than a certain ordinance of reason for the common good, promulgated by the person who has the care of the community.
Thomas Aquinas
#99. It is a common fallacy to believe that the law of large numbers acts as a force endowed with memory seeking to return to the original state, and many wrong conclusions have been drawn from this assumption.
William Feller
#100. One can regard the moral law as an illusion, and so cut himself off from the common ground of humanity.
C.S. Lewis
