Lloyd Kenyon on Justice

"If an infant commit an assault, or utter slander, God forbid that he should not be answerable for it in a Court of justice."

"Courts of equity make their decrees so as to arrive at the justice of the case without violating the rules of law."

"A Court of equity can mould interests differently from a Court of law; and can give relief in cases where a Court of law cannot."

"A plaintiff who comes into a Court of justice must show that he is in a condition to maintain his action."

"Sitting in a Court of law, I can receive no evidence but what comes under the sanction of an oath."

"Justice requires that a party should be duly summoned and fully heard before he is condemned."

"My Lord... it would be well if you would stick to your good law and leave off your bad Latin."

"It is a maxim in our law that a plaintiff must shew that he stands on a fair ground when he calls on a Court of justice to administer relief to him."

"All laws stand on the best and broadest basis which go to enforce moral and social duties."

"It is a rule that those who come into a Court of justice to seek redress, must come with clean hands, and must disclose a transaction warranted by law."

"I have heard that it was the perfection of the administration of criminal justice to take care that the punishment should come to few and the example to many."

"What a man does in his closet ought not to affect the rights of third persons."

"It is our duty to take care that persons in pursuing their own particular interests do not transgress those laws which were made for the benefit of the whole community."

"No stops are ever inserted in Acts of Parliament, or in deeds; but the Courts of law, in construing them, must read them with such stops as will give effect to the whole."

"It is of great importance that the laws by which the contracts of so numerous and so useful a body of men as the sailors are supposed to be guided, should not be overturned."

"I should be extremely sorry to find that in a fictitious proceeding, instituted for the more easy attaining of justice, different rules were to obtain in the different Courts."

"In the hurry of business, the most able Judges are liable to err."

"The learned counsel has very properly avoided all political discussions unconnected with the subject, and I shall follow his example. Courts of justice have nothing to do with them."

"The practice of the Court forms the law of the Court."

"We must judge of a man's motives from his overt acts."

"He had no right to take the law into his own hands."

"It is necessary to the administration of justice that every person who is accused of a crime should have an opportunity of being heard in his defence against the charge of which he is accused."

"Proceedings at law are sufficiently expensive."

"There are certain irregularities which are not the subject of criminal law. But when the criminal law happens to be auxiliary to the law of morality, I do not feel any inclination to explain it away."

"Equity will go no further than the law."

"Precedent goes in support of justice."

"No person is less disposed than I am to accommodate the law to the particular convenience of the case: but I am always glad when I find the strict law and the justice of the case going hand in hand together."

"We must not, by any whimsical conceits supposed to be adapted to the altering fashions of the times, overturn the established law of the land: it descended to us as a sacred charge, and it is our duty to preserve it."

"It is the great duty of every Court of justice to administer justice as well as they can between the litigating parties ; another, and not less material, duty is to satisfy those parties that the whole case has been examined and considered."

"We are all desirous to sit as long as we can, but necessity justifies that which it compels; the strength of man is not adequate to this. Lord Mansfield, as little inclined to give way as any man, did give way at a certain hour in the case of Lord Pomfret."