“And the law says, better is a mischief than an inconvenience. By a mischief is meant, when one man or some few men suffer by the hardship of a law, which law is yet useful for the public. But an inconvenience is to have a public law disobeyed or broken, or an offence to go unpunished.”

11 How. St. Tr. 1208.
Trial of Sir Edward Hales (1686)

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 "And the law says, better is a mischief than an inconvenience. By a mischief is meant, when one man or some few men suff…" by Robert Atkyns (judge)?
Robert Atkyns (judge) photo
Robert Atkyns (judge) 8
Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer and Speaker of the House … 1621–1710

Related quotes

“Better that an individual should suffer an injury than that the public should suffer an inconvenience.”

William Henry Ashurst (judge) (1725–1807) English judge

Russell v. The Mayor of Devon (1788), 1 T. R. 673.

George Orwell photo
William Cowper, 1st Earl Cowper photo

“It is a general rule of Judgment, that a mischief should rather be admitted than an inconvenience.”

William Cowper, 1st Earl Cowper (1665–1723) English politician and first Lord Chancellor of Great Britain

Devit v. College of Dublin (1720), Gilbert Eq. Ca. 249; reported in James William Norton-Kyshe, Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 176.

Cassandra Clare photo

“Some Laws were meant to be broken.”

Source: City of Glass

Benjamin Disraeli photo

“When men are pure, laws are useless; when men are corrupt, laws are broken.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Part 6, Chapter 3
Books, Coningsby (1844), Contarini Fleming (1832)

Richard Arden, 1st Baron Alvanley photo

“Inconvenience arising from the operation of an Act of Parliament can be no ground of argument in a Court of law.”

Richard Arden, 1st Baron Alvanley (1744–1804) British judge and politician

Grigby v. Oakes (1801), 1 Bos. & Pull. 528.

William Ewart Gladstone photo
Richard Nixon photo
George Orwell photo

“In a Society in which there is no law, and in theory no compulsion, the only arbiter of behaviour is public opinion. But public opinion, because of the tremendous urge to conformity in gregarious animals, is less tolerant than any system of law.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"Politics vs. Literature: An Examination of Gulliver's Travels," Polemic (September/October 1946) - Full text online http://orwell.ru/library/reviews/swift/english/e_swift
Context: In a Society in which there is no law, and in theory no compulsion, the only arbiter of behaviour is public opinion. But public opinion, because of the tremendous urge to conformity in gregarious animals, is less tolerant than any system of law. When human beings are governed by "thou shalt not", the individual can practise a certain amount of eccentricity: when they are supposedly governed by "love" or "reason", he is under continuous pressure to make him behave and think in exactly the same way as everyone else.

John F. Kennedy photo

“All students, members of the faculty, and public officials in both Mississippi and the Nation will be able, it is hoped, to return to their normal activities with full confidence in the integrity of American law. This is as it should be, for our Nation is founded on the principle that observance of the law is the eternal safeguard of liberty and defiance of the law is the surest road to tyranny. The law which we obey includes the final rulings of the courts, as well as the enactments of our legislative bodies. Even among law-abiding men few laws are universally loved, but they are uniformly respected and not resisted. Americans are free, in short, to disagree with the law but not to disobey it. For in a government of laws and not of men, no man, however prominent or powerful, and no mob however unruly or boisterous, is entitled to defy a court of law. If this country should ever reach the point where any man or group of men by force or threat of force could long defy the commands of our court and our Constitution, then no law would stand free from doubt, no judge would be sure of his writ, and no citizen would be safe from his neighbors.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Radio and Television Report to the Nation on the Situation at the University of Mississippi (30 September 1962) http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Ready-Reference/JFK-Speeches/Radio-and-Television-Report-to-the-Nation-on-the-Situation-at-the-University-of-Mississippi.aspx
1962

Related topics