William Blackstone Liberty Quotations

That the king can do no wrong is a necessary and fundamental principle of the English constitution.

Trial by jury is a privilege of the highest and most beneficial nature [and] our most important guardian both of public and private liberty. The liberties of England cannot but subsist so long as this palladium remains sacred and inviolate, not only from all open attacks, ... but also from all secret machinations, which may sap and undermine it.

The liberty of the press is indeed essential to the nature of a free state: but this consists in laying no previous restraints upon publications, and not in freedom from censure for criminal matter when published. Every freeman has an undoubted right to lay what sentiments he pleases before the public: to forbid this, is to destroy the freedom of the press: but if he publishes what is improper, mischievous, or illegal, he must take the consequence of his own temerity.

The public good is in nothing more essentially interested, than in the protection of every individual's private rights.

The law, which restrains a man from doing mischief to his fellow citizens, though it diminishes the natural, increases the civil liberty of mankind.