Lawyers From England

"And once again the scene was chang’d, New earth there seem’d to be, I saw the Holy City Beside the tideless sea; The light of God was on its streets, The gates were open wide, And all who would might enter, And no one was denied. No need of moon or stars by night, Or sun to shine by day, It was the new Jerusalem, That would not pass away."

"Roses are shining in Picardy In the hush of the silver dew; Roses are flowering in Picardy But there's never a rose like you. And the roses will die with the summer time And our roads may be far apart, But there's one rose that dies not in Picardy; 'Tis the rose that I keep in my heart."

"Oh, Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling From glen to glen, and down the mountain side, The summer's gone, and all the roses falling, It's you, it's you must go, and I must bide."

"The criminal law stands to the passion of revenge in much the same relation as marriage to the sexual appetite."

"Parliamentary government is simply a mild and disguised form of compulsion. We agree to try strength by counting heads instead of breaking heads, but the principle is exactly the same... The minority gives way not because it is convinced that it is wrong, but because it is convinced that it is a minority."

"To me this question whether liberty is a good or a bad thing appears as irrational as the question whether fire is a good or a bad thing. It is both good and bad according to time, place, and circumstance, and a complete answer to the question, In what cases is liberty good and in what cases is it bad? would involve not merely a universal history of mankind, but a complete solution of the problems which such a history would offer."

"Originality consists in thinking for yourself, not in thinking differently from other people."

"I did not know that the same ground had already been covered by Mr. Justice Stephen in his book Liberty, Equality, Fraternity published in 1873. It was not until much later that I was with great difficulty able to obtain from the Holborn Public Library a copy of the book held together with an elastic band. I hope that, as a result of Professor Hart's criticism of it, more interest will now be aroused in a valuable work. Although I missed altogether one cogent argument advanced by Stephen, I find great similarity between his view and mine on the principles which should affect the use of the criminal law for the enforcement of morals. Commenting on the work of Mr. Justice Stephen and myself, Professor Hart noted that "the similarity in the general tone and sometimes in the detail of their argument is very great". The fact that we reached our conclusions independently gives additional force to Professor Hart's comment (which, however it may have been intended, I regard as complimentary) that they reveal "the outlook characteristic of the English judiciary"."

"His criticism of Mill is to be found in the sombre and impressive book Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, which he wrote as a direct reply to Mill's essay On Liberty. It is evident from the tone of the book that Stephen thought he had found crushing arguments against Mill and had demonstrated that the law might justifiably enforce morality as such or, as he said, that the law should be "a persecution of the grosser forms of vice." Nearly a century later, on the publication of the Wolfenden Committee's report, Lord Devlin, now a member of the House of Lords and a most distinguished writer on the criminal law, in his essay on The Enforcement of Morals took as his target the Report's contention "that there must be a realm of morality and immorality which is not the law's business" and argued in opposition to it that "the suppression of vice is as such the law's business as the suppression of subversive activities." Though a century divides these two legal writers, the similarity in the general tone and sometimes in the detail of their arguments is very great."

"Sir James Stephen was eminently unromantic. His qualities were those of solidity and force; he preponderated with a character of formidable grandeur, with a massive and rugged intellectual sanity, a colossal commonsense."

"Stephen's book [Liberty, Equality, Fraternity] is the finest exposition of conservative thought in the latter half of the nineteenth century. It is a robust polemic, sometimes extravagant in its epigrams, but tinged throughout by that belief in the religious basis of human society which has been the strength of conservatism from Burke to to-day. It is a frank and die-hard statement of the ideas dominant among the educated and governing classes of English society."

"To try to make men equal by altering social arrangements is like trying to make the cards of equal value by shuffling the pack."

"The result of cutting [political power] up into little bits is simply that the man who can sweep the greatest number into one heap will govern the rest... In a pure democracy the ruling men will be the wirepullers and their friends; but they will no more be on an equality with the voters than soldiers of Ministers of State are on an equality with the subjects of monarchy."

"In all he wrote there are words of wisdom and strength. Often, in years to come, when sentiment is tyrannous and when people are afraid to speak plain, because unpleasant, things, will this sturdy spokesman of stern truths, the last of the Benthamites, be missed."

"To say that the law of force is abandoned because force is regular, unopposed, and beneficially exercised, is to say that day and night are now such well-established institutions that the sun and moon are mere superfluities."

"I am not the advocate of Slavery, Caste, and Hatred, nor do I deny that a sense may be given to the words, Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, in which they may be regarded as good. I wish to assert with respect to them two propositions. First, that in the present day even those who use those words most rationally — that is to say, as the names of elements of social life which, like others, have their advantages and disadvantages according to time, place, and circumstance — have a great disposition to exaggerate their advantages and to deny the existence, or at any rate to underrate the importance, of their disadvantages. Next, that whatever signification be attached to them, these words are ill-adapted to be the creed of a religion, that the things which they denote are not ends in themselves, and that when used collectively the words do not typify, however vaguely, any state of society which a reasonable man ought to regard with enthusiasm or self-devotion."

"Persuasion, indeed, is a kind of force. It consists in showing a person the consequences of his actions. It is, in a word, force applied through the mind."

"To try to regulate the internal affairs of a family, the relations of love or friendship, or many other things of the same sort, by law or by the coercion of public opinion, is like trying to pull an eyelash out of a man’s eye with a pair of tongs. They may put out the eye, but they will never get hold of the eyelash"

"Men have an all but incurable propensity to try to prejudge all the great questions which interest them by stamping their prejudices upon their language. Law, in many cases, means not only a command, but a beneficent command. Liberty means not the bare absence of restraint, but the absence of injurious restraint. Justice means not mere impartiality in applying general rules to particular cases, but impartiality in applying beneficent general rules to particular cases. Some people half consciously use the word "true" as meaning useful as well as true. Of course language can never be made absolutely neutral and colourless; but unless its ambiguities are understood, accuracy of thought is impossible, and the injury done is proportionate to the logical force and general vigour of character of those who are misled."

"The mere repetition of the Cantilena of lawyers cannot make it law, unless it can be traced to some competent authority; and if it be irreconcilable, to some clear legal principle."

"One subject, and one subject only, beyond the limits of his private grief had still power to move him deeply—too deeply for his happiness and peace—and that was the terrible, ever-haunting subject of Slavery and the Slave Trade. By this time Mrs. Stowe's master work had taken by storm the attention of all the world. Knowing the effect it would have on their father, his children at first tried to keep it from him, but this, in the case of one not absolutely secluded from society, was of course impossible. He read it, and with what result is easy to conceive. It moved him not only with pity and horror, but filled him also with bitterness and wrath."

"Especially I should say, if you would allow me to do so, that your name stands already high among all classes in this country as a model of uprightness and independence in the judicial office."

"A delusion, a mockery, and a snare."

"None but himself can be his parallel."

"Let us consider the reason of the case. For nothing is law that is not reason."

"We can judge the intent of the parties only by their words."

"This story of a valiant heart tested to destruction took rank when it was first published a few months after the Armistice, as one of the most moving of the novels produced by the war. It was at that time a little swept aside by the revulsion of the public mind from anything to do with the awful period just ended. But on rereading it nine years later it seems to hold its place, and indeed a permanent place, in war literature. It was one of those cries of pain wrung from the fighting troops by the prolonged and measureless torment through which they passed; and like the poems of Siegfried Sassoon should be read in each generation, so that men and women may rest under no illusion about what war means."

"It [The Secret Battle] is one of the most moving books I have ever read."

"The best book yet published about life in the trenches."

"Mr. Herbert's is one of the most interesting and moving English war books."

"Justice should be cheap but judges expensive."

"This is the most riotous satire on legal procedure that has ever been written."

"The whole Constitution has been erected upon the assumption that the King not only is capable of doing wrong but is more likely to do wrong than other men if he is given the chance."

"A highbrow is the kind of person who looks at a sausage and thinks of Picasso."

"A man who has made up his mind on a given subject twenty-five years ago and continues to hold his political opinions after he has been proved to be wrong is a man of principle; while he who from time to time adapts his opinions to the changing circumstances of life is an opportunist."

"The critical period in matrimony is breakfast-time."

"People must not do things for fun. We are not here for fun. There is no reference to fun in any Act of Parliament."

"Citizens who take it upon themselves to do unusual actions which attract the attention of the police should be careful to bring these actions into one of the recognized categories of crimes and offences, for it is intolerable that the police should be put to the pains of inventing reasons for finding them undesirable."

"It is like the thirteenth stroke of a crazy clock, which not only is itself discredited but casts a shade of doubt over all previous assertions."

"The Englishman never enjoys himself except for a noble purpose. He does not play cricket because it is a good game, but because it creates good citizens. He does not love motor-races for their own sake, but for the advantages they bring to the engineering firms of his country. And it is common knowledge that the devoted persons who conduct and regularly attend horse-races do not do so because they like it, but for the benefit of the breed of the English horse."

"It cannot be too clearly understood that this is not a free country, and it will be an evil day for the legal profession when it is."

"Nobody's wrong but England – and England's always wrong, Too late – or else too early – too soft – or else too strong. And when for once the wide world begins to praise her name Her own sons crowd and hurry to shout her back to shame."

"The race is run - the winner wears the laurels, But you and I not empty go away; For we have seen the least unkind of quarrels; The young men glowing in the friendly way. Let us be glad - but not because of winning, Let us go home, to family today. God make our Games a glorious beginning, And hand in hand, together guide us on our way."

"There's alcohol in plant and tree. It must be Nature's plan That there should be in fair degree Some alcohol in Man."

"How proud upon your quarterdeck you stand, Conductor, Captain of the mighty bus! Like some Columbus you survey the Strand,A calm newcomer in a sea of fuss."

"Was the cow crossed?" "No, your worship, it was an open cow."

"Bus driver, bus driver, the sirens have gone, The bombs may come down, but the buses go on; Bus driver, I know you won't think me a snobIf I whisper: "Bus driver, I don't want your job"."

"The portions of a woman which appeal to man's depravity Are constructed with considerable care."

"The Farmer will never be happy again; He carries his heart in his boots; For either the rain is destroying his grain Or the drought is destroying his roots."

"For I must write to The Times tonight, and save the world from sin."