“There is nothing which so generally strikes the imagination, and engages the affections of mankind, as the right of property; or that sole and despotic dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in total exclusion of the right of any other individual in the universe. And yet there are very few, that will give themselves the trouble to consider the original and foundation of this right.”

—  William Blackstone , book Commentaries on the Laws of England

Book II, ch. 1 http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/blackstone_bk2ch1.asp: Of Property in General.
Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–1769)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "There is nothing which so generally strikes the imagination, and engages the affections of mankind, as the right of pro…" by William Blackstone?
William Blackstone photo
William Blackstone 15
English jurist, judge and Tory politician 1723–1780

Related quotes

Pierre Joseph Proudhon photo

“AXIOM. — Property is the Right of Increase claimed by the Proprietor over any thing which he has stamped as his own.”

Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) French politician, mutualist philosopher, economist, and socialist

Source: What is Property? (1840), Ch. IV

“But in reason if one man has no right to command all other men--the expedient of despotism--neither has he any right to command even one other man; nor yet have ten men, or a million, the right to command even one other man, for ten times nothing is nothing, and a million times nothing is nothing.”

Isabel Paterson (1886–1961) author and editor

Source: The God of the Machine (1943), p. 122

Thomas Sowell photo

“Both free speech rights and property rights belong legally to individuals, but their real function is social, to benefit vast numbers of people who do not themselves exercise these rights.”

Thomas Sowell (1930) American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author

Will Property Rights Return?
1980s–1990s, Is Reality Optional? (1993)

Ilana Mercer photo

“Rights give rise to legal claims. Ultimately, the more rights animals are granted, the greater the legal lien exercised on their behalf against the liberty and property of people.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

"In Defense of Vick, Man is the Only Top Dog," http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/rights-animals-peta-1836739-human-moral Orange County Register, September 2, 2007.
2000s, 2007

Lyndon B. Johnson photo

“This right to vote is the basic right without which all others are meaningless. It gives people, people as individuals, control over their own destinies.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, Voting Rights Act signing speech (1965)
Context: In 1957, as the leader of the majority in the United States Senate, speaking in support of legislation to guarantee the right of all men to vote, I said, "This right to vote is the basic right without which all others are meaningless. It gives people, people as individuals, control over their own destinies."

William Howard Taft photo

“Next to the right of liberty, the right of property is the most important individual right guaranteed by the Constitution and the one which, united with that of personal liberty, has contributed more to the growth of civilization than any other institution established by the human race.”

William Howard Taft (1857–1930) American politician, 27th President of the United States (in office from 1909 to 1913)

Popular Government: Its Essence, Its Permanence and Its Perils, chapter 4, p.90 (1913).

Harry V. Jaffa photo

“No, on the contrary, the Constitution exists to protect that right. The important point is that the Constitution exists to protect individual liberty and individual property. In fact, the most important of all of the rights, really the foundation of all rights, are the rights to private property. But the right to private property is a right for each individual human being to own himself.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

2000s, The Real Abraham Lincoln: A Debate (2002), Q&A

Elbridge G. Spaulding photo

“The Republican Party insists that slavery originated in force, by the stronger against the weaker party, and not by natural right; that it is maintained and upheld by oppression and wrong, and against the law of nature. This usurped ownership in man is not that kind of property which is recognized by the general consent of mankind.”

Elbridge G. Spaulding (1809–1897) American politician

Remarks on the Republican platform (1860)

John Locke photo

“As usurpation is the exercise of power which another has a right to, so tyranny is the exercise of power beyond right, which nobody can have a right to…”

John Locke book Two Treatises of Government

Second Treatise of Government, Ch. XVIII, sec. 199
Two Treatises of Government (1689)

Noam Chomsky photo

“Property rights are not like other rights, contrary to what Madison and a lot of modern political theory says. If I have the right to free speech, it doesn't interfere with your right to free speech. But if I have property, that interferes with your right to have that property, you don't have it, I have it. So the right to property is very different from the right to freedom of speech. This is often put very misleadingly about rights of property; property has no right. But if we just make sense out of this, maybe there is a right to property, one could debate that, but it's very different from other rights.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Quotes 1990s, 1995–1999, The Common Good (1998)

Related topics