Courts of equity make their decrees so as to arrive at the justice of — Equity

"I do not think that Courts of equity ought to go otherwise than the Courts of law."

"I have always thought that formerly there was too confined a way of thinking in the Judges of the common law Courts, and that Courts of equity have risen by the Judges not properly applying the principles of the common law, being too narrowly governed by old cases and maxims, which have too much prevented the public from having the benefit of the common law."

"Equity is no part of the law, but a moral virtue, which qualifies, moderates, and reforms the rigor, hardness and edge of the law, and is a universal truth. It does also assist the law, where it is defective and weak in the constitution (which is the life of the law), and defends the law from crafty evasions, delusions and mere subtleties, invented and contrived to evade and elude the common law, whereby such as have undoubted right are made remediless. And thus is the office of equity to protect and support the common law from shifts and contrivances against the justice of the law. Equity, therefore, does not destroy the law, nor create it, but assists it."

"Equity in its true and genuine meaning, is the soul and spirit of all law; positive law is construed, and rational law is made, by it. In this, equity is synonymous to justice; in that, to the true sense and sound interpretation of the rule."

"A Court of equity which is never active in relief against conscience, or public convenience, has always refused its aid to stale demands where the party has slept upon his right, and acquiesced for a great length of time. Nothing can call forth this Court into activity, but conscience, good faith and reasonable diligence; where these are wanting, the Court is passive and does nothing."

"Nor doth the law of the land speak against him. But that and equity ought to join hand in hand, in moderating and restraining all extremities and hardships. . . . They both aim at one and the same end, which is, to do right."