Quote#Politics & Power
The statute law is the will of the legislature in writing; the common…
Quote byJohn Eardley Wilmot · 1709–1792
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Collins v. Blantern (1767), 2 Wils. 341..
English (original)
The statute law is the will of the legislature in writing; the common law is nothing else but statutes worn out by time; all our law began by consent of the legislature, and whether it is now law by usage or writing, it is the same thing.
— John Eardley Wilmot
More from John Eardley Wilmot
There is no merit in a settlement: it depends upon positive law.
The time makes no difference in the reason of the thing.
If once we go upon niceties of construction, we shall not know where to stop. For one nicety is made a foundation for another; and that other for a third; and so on, without end.
Nothing could be of worse consequence, than that an officer of the Court should combine with a criminal to frustrate the sentence of the Court.
It is the principle of the common law, that an officer ought not to take money for doing his duty.
It is a strange, wild jurisdiction, where the jurors are judges both of law and fact, and ignorant country fellows2 are to determine the nicest points of law.