Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon Quotes

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The legislature have anxiously provided for those most useful and deserving body of men, the seamen and marines of this country.

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon
I have been reminded that I sit here as counsel for the defendant. I certainly do so, so far as to interpose between him and the counsel for the prosecution, and to see that no improper use of the law is made against him, and that no improper evidence is given to the jury: but the Judge has another task to perform, which is that of assisting the jury in the administration of justice.

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon
That corporations are the creatures of the Crown must be universally admitted.

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon
Whatever might have been my opinion, had this been a new case, I must hold myself bound by decided cases.

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon
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.

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon
If people with the very best intentions carry on prosecutions that are oppressive, the end may not always perhaps sanctify the means.

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon
We ought not to decide hastily against the words of an Act of Parliament.

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon
We must judge of a man's motives from his overt acts.

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon
If an infant commit an assault, or utter slander, God forbid that he should not be answerable for it in a Court of justice.

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon
Apprentices and servants are characters perfectly distinct: the one receives instruction, the other a stipulated price for his labour.

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon
To enter into the hearts of men belongs to him who can explore the human heart.

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon
Notwithstanding all the care and anxiety of the persons who frame Acts of Parliament to guard against every event, it frequently turns out that certain cases were not foreseen.

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon
I cannot help observing, that many of those who have written in support of our ancient system of jurisprudence, the growth of the wisdom of man for so many ages, are not as they are alleged by some to be men writing from their closets without any knowledge of the affairs of life, but persons mixing with the mass of society, and capable of receiving practical experience of the soundness of the maxims they inculcate.

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon
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.

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon
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.

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon
What is clear to one man may be doubtful to another.

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon
The wishes of every human man are, that guilt may not be fixed upon any man; but I confess I am one of those who have not the weakness—which weakness, a Judge at least, and a jury, must get rid of, before they fit themselves to fill the respective stations which they are to fill in the administration of the justice of the country— I say, therefore, I am not one of those who wish under false compassion, inconsistent with the administration of criminal justice, that a person on whom guilt is fairly fixed, should escape the punishment which the law annexes to his guilt.

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon
I do not know how far I ought to sit here and suffer a gentleman at the bar to bring forward parts of the Bible in this way. It is for you, gentlemen of the jury, to say whether you wish to hear them read.

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon
A man may publish anything which twelve of his countrymen think not blamable.

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon
The character of the Judges is public property, and if they have done anything amiss, they ought to be censured. But if not, their characters ought to be respected; otherwise the most mischievous consequences will arise to the public.

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon
The liberty of the press is dear to England; the licentiousness of the press is odious to England: the liberty of it can never be so well protected as by beating down the licentiousness.

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon
It is necessary for Courts of Justice to hold a strict hand over summary proceedings before magistrates, and I never will agree to relax any of the rules by which they have been bound. Their jurisdiction is of a limited nature, and they must shew that the party was brought within it.

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon
The liberty of the press has always been, and has justly been, a favourite topic with Englishmen. They have looked at it with jealousy whenever it has been invaded; and though a licenser was put over the press, and was suffered to exist for some years after the coming of William, and after the revolution, yet the reluctant spirit of English liberty called for a repeal of that law; and from that time to this it has not been shackled and limited more than it ought to be.

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon
If I were master of eloquence I would not make the decision of this cause a stage upon which I would display that eloquence. Those things which are very proper for advocates to do, become very improper for the Judge, who has nothing to do, but to state to the jury the short grounds upon which the cause ought to proceed.

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon
The interest of the public is never better advanced than when we can inculcate by our rules the advantage of acting honestly.

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon