"We should not be too strict in construing instruments or contracts generally drawn up on the spur of the moment."

“Whatever restraint is larger than the necessary protection of the party, can be of no benefit to either, it can only be oppressive; and if oppressive, it is, in the eye of the law unreasonable.”

“Immemorial enjoyment is the most solid of all titles.”

“It is fraud in law if a party makes representations which he knows to be false, and injury ensues, although the motives from which the representations proceeded may not have been bad.”

“Illegality is not to be presumed; it is to be alleged and proved when it does not appear on the face of the instrument itself.”

“There is no reason for assuming, that the time of medical men and attornies is more valuable than that of others whose livelihood depends on their own exertions.”

“It will appear, no doubt, that at various periods of our history there have been decisions as to the nature and description of the religious solemnities necessary for the completion of a perfect marriage, which cannot be reconciled together; but there will be found no authority to contravene the general position, that at all times, by the common law of England, it was essential to the constitution of a full and complete marriage, that there must be some religious solemnity; that both modes of obligation should exist together, the civil and the religious.”