Quotes & Sayings About Common Law And Equity

In reality there are two, and only two, foundations of law; and they are both of them conditions without which nothing can give it any force: I mean equity and utility. With respect to the former, it grows out of the great rule of equality, which is grounded upon our common nature, and which Philo, with propriety and beauty, calls the mother of justice. All human laws are, properly speaking, only declaratory; they may alter the mode and application, but have no power over the substance, of original justice. The other foundation of law, which is utility, must be understood, not of partial or limited, but of general and public, utility, connected in the same manner with, and derived directly from, our rational nature: for any other utility may be the utility of a robber, but cannot be that of a citizen, - the interest of the domestic enemy, and not that of a member of the commonwealth. — Edmund Burke

That part of the judicial law which
was typical of Christ's government
has ceased, but that part which is of
common and general equity remains
still in force. It is a common maxim:
those judgments which are common
and natural are moral and perpetual. — Samuel Bolton

It cannot be assumed that equity was following common law whenever they agreed, any more than the converse. — Frederick Pollock

In transgressing the law of nature, the offender declares himself to live by another rule than that of reason and common equity Ch.2, 8 — John Locke

Judicials of common [or general] equity are such as are made according to the law or instinct of nature common to all men: and these in respect of their substance, bind the consciences not only of the Jews but also of the Gentiles — William Perkins