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William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield Quotes
1705–1793 Scotland
William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield, SL, PC (2 March 1705 – 20 March 1793), better known as Lord Mansfield, was a British barrister, politician and judge noted for his reform of English law. He served as a Member of Parliament for Boroughbridge, where he was noted for his "great powers of eloquence" and described as "beyond comparison the best speaker" in the House of Commons.
Scotland Judges Politicians Also known as: Lord Mansfield
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An estimated value is a precarious measure of justice, compared with the specific thing.
Fisher v. Prince (1762)
A man wants no protection when his conduct is strictly right.
Bird v. Gunston (1785)
No degree of antiquity can give sanction to a usage bad in itself.
The air of England has long been too pure for a slave, and every man is free who breathes it.
God forbid that the defendant should not be allowed the benefit of every advantage he is entitled to by law.
The law protects nothing in that very respect, in which it is, at the same time, in the eye of the law, a crime.
Fictions are allowed against all the King's subjects for the furtherance, but never for the hindrance, of justice.
The way to do complete justice indeed, is to let in the one side, without prejudicing the other.
Give your decisions, never your reasons; your decisions may be right, your reasons are sure to be wrong.
s Advice; in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922)
Common people do not make such distinction between money and land, as persons conversant in Law Matters do.
Very happily, the more the law is looked into, the more it appears founded in equity, reason, and good sense.
Ingenuity is one thing, and simple testimony another, and plain truth, I take it, needs no flowers of speech.
Where a real ground is laid, the Court will take care that justice is done to the defendant as well as to the plaintiff.
If any precedent should be found, you should have time to make use of it.
This very cause between parties who (on both sides) are strangers to the whole transaction, shews the wisdom of some limitation.
Uncertain justice by a verdict is much better than certain injustice.
There is no entering into the secret thoughts of a man's heart.
Men intoxicated are sometimes stunned into sobriety.
Most of the disputes in the world arise from words.
A man may judge impartially even in his own cause.
Rex v. Cowle (1759)
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