Law

"A great Judge was asked, 'What is the difference between law and equity?' 'Very little in the end,' responded his lordship; 'at common law you are done for at once; in equity you are not so easily disposed of. The former is a bullet which is instantaneously and charmingly effective; the latter, the angler's hook, which plays with the victim before it kills him. Common law is prussic acid, equity is laudanum.'"

"I am not much of a dictionary maker, but I believe I could improve upon either and say, 'An obiter dictum is the passing opinion of a Judge expressed when it is not called for.'"

"An old Judge is quoted as saying, 'An obiter dictum, in the language of the law, is a gratuitous opinion, an individual impertinence.'"

""Obiter Dicta," said John A. Finch at the recent banquet of the Indiana State Bar Association, "is not statutory Latin, and we have no information as to how the words would have been translated by the Commissioners who prepared our first Code, had they been required to make such an attempt. The law dictionaries and the Courts translate these words as a phrase, and give us rather an exegesis than a translation. 'Dicta,' says a Judge of the New York Court of Appeals,' are opinions of a Judge which do not embody the resolution or determination of the Court, and made without argument or full consideration of the point; they are not the professed, deliberate determinations of the Judge himself. ' Obiter dicta,' he says, 'are such opinions, uttered by the way, not upon the point or question pending, as if drawn aside for the time from the main topic of the case to collateral subjects.'"

"This mere obiter opinion ought not to weigh against the settled direct authority of the cases which have been deliberately and upon argument determined the other way."

"There are old dicta of great Judges, which have been followed by many decisions and have become maxims of the law; but modern dicta are but attempts to embody in a short form the result of decisions or statutes which any lawyer can examine for himself."

"In the books there are some loose dicta that an Act of Parliament and the common law should respectively stand as originals according to the circumstances of the case; but this is not law, unless it be confined to prohibitions for excess of jurisdiction and to restrain waste.— Heath, J., Jefferson v. Bishop of Durham (1797), 2 Bos. & Pull. 129."

"I never allow my construction of a plain enactment to be biassed in the slightest degree by any number of judicial decisions or dicta as to its meaning, when those decisions or dicta are not actually binding upon me. I read the Act for myself. If I think it clear I express my opinion about its meaning, as I consider I am bound to do. Of course, if other Judges have expressed different views as to the construction, and their decisions are binding on this Court, this Court has simply to bow and submit, whatever its own opinion may be. But when there is no such binding decision, in my view a Judge ought not to allow himself to be biassed in the construction of a plain Act of Parliament (for it appears to me to be plain) by any number of dicta or decisions which are not binding on him. The Judge ought with all due respect to examine into them, but he must not allow any number of dicta, or even decisions which are not binding on him, to affect his judgment, except in one peculiar case. That case is peculiar, and therefore I will mention it. Where a series of decisions in inferior Courts have put a construction on an Act of Parliament, and thus have made a law which men follow in their daily dealings, it has been held, even by the House of Lords, that it is better to adhere to the course of the decisions than to reverse them, because of the mischief which would result from such a proceeding. Of course, that requires two things, antiquity of decision, and the practice of mankind in conducting their affairs."

"Speaking for myself, I do not pay much attention to the dicta of modern Judges, as I consider it my duty to decide for myself. This, of course, does not apply to decisions of modern Judges, nor to old recognised dicta by eminent Judges."

"How necessary it is carefully to consider the language of learned Judges, especially when you are dealing with language which is admitted to be only a dictum and not a decision, and when it is attempted to use that language for the purpose of founding on it an article of a code of law."

"It is said that the world is in a state of bankruptcy, that the world owes the world more than the world can pay, and ought to go into chancery, and be sold."

"Capitalism without bankruptcy is like Christianity without hell."

"I do not mean to say that the Court could not give leave to amend, but I cannot conceive that the Court would listen to an application for leave to amend after the trial. That could not have been intended: it would be opposed to all principles of justice."

"Between the stirrup and the ground He mercy sought and mercy found."

"Donald Trump has America back on the road to bankruptcy, an area where he has unparalleled expertise for a president of the United States. The small band of fiscal conservatives who remain in the Trump administration warned the president about the eventual dangers of his out-of-control spending addiction. In one such meeting, Trump reportedly said, "Yeah, but I won't be here." I never heard him say those words, but it doesn't come as a surprise. That's how he thinks. What does he care if the federal government goes belly-up? By then it won't be his problem."

"Vitium clerici nocere non debet: A clerical error ought- not to hurt."

"And we will conclude with the aphorisme of that great lawyer and sage of the law. Edm. Plowden (which we have heard him often say) Blessed is the amending hand."

"An amendment ought not to be allowed if it will occasion injustice; but if it can do no injustice, and will only save expense, it ought to be made."

"I do not think I ought to allow an amendment for the mere purpose of enabling the defendant to raise a purely technical objection to the plaintiff's title to sue."

"I have said frequently, and I repeat it, that there is no Judge on the bench who is more willing to allow amendments, even at the last moment, than I, provided there is no surprise."

"My practice has always been to give leave to amend unless I have been satisfied that the party applying was acting mala fide, or that by his blunder, he had done some injury to his opponent which could not be compensated for by costs or otherwise."

"However negligent or careless may have been the first omission, however late the proposed amendment, the amendment should be allowed if it can be made without injustice to the other side. There is no injustice if the other side can be compensated by costs."

"The test as to whether the amendment should be allowed is whether or not the defendants can amend without placing the plaintiff in such a position that he cannot be recouped, as it were, by any allowance of costs or otherwise."

"It is between the stirrup and the ground, Brother; but you may amend by replying."

"I am very free to own that the strong bias of my mind has always leaned to prevent the manifest justice of a cause from being defeated or delayed by formal slips, which arise from the inadvertence of gentlemen of the profession; because it is extremely hard on the party to be turned round, and put to expense, from such mistakes of the counsel or attorney he employs. It is hard, also, on the profession."

"We must judge upon the case as stated. If it is mis-stated, you must apply to amend it."

"Amendments ought not to be made, except in cases where the alteration is of such a nature as that no one can be misled by it."

"Mr. Attorney, I have often heard say, ' Blessed is the mending hand.'"

"The rule is "that whilst all is in paper, you may amend.""

"Whatever at common law might be amended in civil cases, was at common law amendable in criminal, and so it is at this day."

"Blessed is the mending hand."

"One of the biggest lies in capitalism is that companies like competition. They don't. Nobody likes competition."

"One of the bad effects of an anti-intellectual philosophy, such as that of Bergson, is that it thrives upon the errors and confusions of the intellect. Hence it is led to prefer bad thinking to good, to declare every momentary difficulty insoluble, and to regard every foolish mistake as revealing the bankruptcy of intellect and the triumph of intuition."

"Our national debt after all is an internal debt owed not only by the Nation but to the Nation. If our children have to pay interest on it they will pay that interest to themselves. A reasonable internal debt will not impoverish our children or put the Nation into bankruptcy."

"A man may be a bankrupt, and yet be honest, for he may become so by accident, and not of purpose to deceive his creditors."

"Such was the origin of that debt which has since become the greatest prodigy that ever perplexed the sagacity and confounded the pride of statesmen and philosophers. At every stage in the growth of that debt the nation has set up the same cry of anguish and despair. At every stage in the growth of that debt it has been seriously asserted by wise men that bankruptcy and ruin were at hand. Yet still the debt went on growing; and still bankruptcy and ruin were as remote as ever."

"Bankruptcy is considered as a crime, and the bankrupt in the old laws is called an offender: but it is a principle of natural justice, and of our law, that actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea."

"Bankruptcy in my opinion ever was and yet is considered as a crime, whatever tradesmen may now think of it. It was anciently punished with corporal punishment."

"A woman's whole life is a history of the affections. The heart is her world: it is there her ambition strives for empire; it is there her avarice seeks for hidden treasures. She sends forth her sympathies on adventure; she embarks her whole soul on the traffic of affection; and if shipwrecked, her case is hopeless — for it is a bankruptcy of the heart."

"Taking out a commission of bankruptcy is a well-known mode of recovering a debt."

"'How did you go bankrupt?' Bill asked. 'Two ways,' Mike said. 'Gradually and then suddenly.'"

"The privileges of creditors to come in under a bankruptcy, and of bankrupts to be discharged, are co-extensive and commensurate."

"He who desireth to sleep soundly, let him buy the bed of a bankrupt."

"Our supple tribes repress their patriot throats, And ask no questions but the price of votes."

"Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder."

"Every man has his price."

"No mortal thing can bear so high a price, But that with mortal thing it may be bought."

"Auro pulsa fides, auro venalia jura, Aurum lex sequitur, mox sine lege pudor."

"Alas! the small discredit of a bribe Scarce hurts the lawyer, but undoes the scribe."

"But here more slow, where all are slaves to gold, Where looks are merchandise, and smiles are sold."