69 quotes
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason!
Julius Cæsar (1599)
Vex not his ghost: Oh; let him pass! he hates him,
That would upon the rack of this tough world
Stretch him out longer.
How would you be,
If He, which is the top of judgment, should
But judge you as you are?
Measure for Measure (1603)
This bond is forfeit;
And lawfully by this the Jew may claim
A pound of flesh.
Bold of your worthiness, we single you
As our best-moving fair solicitor.
But is this law?
Ay, marry is 't; crowner's quest law.
A Daniel come to judgment! yea, a Daniel.
What is my offence?
Where are the evidence that do accuse me?
What lawful quest have given their verdict up
Unto the frowning judge?
It doth appear you are a worthy judge,
You know the law; your exposition
Hath been most sound
Merchant of Venice (1596)
I see men's judgments are
A parcel of their fortunes; and things outward
Do draw the inward quality after them,
To suffer all alike.
Thrice is he arm'd that hath his quarrel just,
And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.
The great King of kings
Hath in the table of his law commanded
That thou shalt do no murder: and wilt thou, then,
Spurn at his edict and fulfill a man's?
Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incardine,
Making the green one red.
O, I were damn'd beneath all depth in hell,
But that I did proceed upon just grounds
To this extremity.
Othello (1603)
Faith, I have been a truant in the law,
And never yet could frame my will to it;
And therefore frame the law unto my will.
I am a subject,
And I challenge law: attorneys are denied me;
And therefore personally I lay my claim
To my inheritance of free descent.
Richard II (1595)
We must not make a scarecrow of the law,
Setting it up to fear the birds of prey,
And let it keep one shape, till custom make it
Their perch and not their terror.
Measure for Measure (1603)
If little faults, proceeding on distemper,
Shall not be wink'd at, how shall we stretch our eye
When capital crimes, chew'd, swallow'd, and digested,
Appear before us?
Henry V (1599)
It must not be; there is no power in Venice
Can alter a decree established:
'Twill be recorded for a precedent;
And many an error by the same example
Will rush into the state.
He that of greatest works is finisher
Oft does them by the weakest minister:
So holy writ in babes hath judgment shown,
When judges have been babes.