Francis Bacon on Justice
1561–1626 England
← All quotes by Francis Bacon
9 quotes
Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.
Meditationes sacræ (1597)
Judges ought to be more learned than witty, more reverend than plausible, and more advised than confident. Above all things, integrity is their portion and proper virtue.
Revenge is a kind of wild justice; which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.
Essays : Of Revenge (1625)
Judges ought to remember that their office is jus dicere, and not jus dare—to interpret law, and not to make law, or give law.
There is no worse torture than the torture of laws.
If we depart from the letter, we are not interpreting the law, but guessing at the law.
All this is but a web of the wit; it can work nothing.
One of the Seven was wont to say: "That laws were like cobwebs; where the small flies were caught, and the great brake through."
It was a thing not to be done suddenly nor at one Parliament; nor scarce a whole year would suffice, to purge the statute-book nor lessen the volume of laws;-being so many in number that neither common people can half practise them, nor the lawyer sufficiently understand them.