“God forbid that Judges upon their oath should make resolutions to enlarge jurisdiction.”

Reeves v. Buttler (1715), Gilbert, Eq. Ca. 196; reported in James William Norton-Kyshe, The Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 137.

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 "God forbid that Judges upon their oath should make resolutions to enlarge jurisdiction." by William Cowper, 1st Earl Cowper?
William Cowper, 1st Earl Cowper photo
William Cowper, 1st Earl Cowper 4
English politician and first Lord Chancellor of Great Brita… 1665–1723

Related quotes

John Holt (Lord Chief Justice) photo

“If it be a matter within our jurisdiction, we are bound by our oaths to judge of it.”

John Holt (Lord Chief Justice) (1642–1710) English lawyer and Lord Chief Justice of England

2 Raym. Rep. 956.
Ashby v. White (1703)

John Eardley Wilmot photo

“God forbid that the rights of the innocent should be lost and destroyed by the offence of individuals.”

John Eardley Wilmot (1709–1792) English judge

Mayor, &c. of Colchester v. Seaber (1765), 3 Burr. Part IV. 1871.

Rebecca West photo

“God forbid that any book should be banned. The practice is as indefensible as infanticide.”

Rebecca West (1892–1983) British feminist and author

"The Tosh Horse," The New Statesman (1925); later included in Strange Necessity: Essays and Reviews (1928), ch. 11

“God forbid that we should have any desire to return to that living hell!”

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

Individualism and Socialism (1933)
Context: Even if the days of 1928 and early 1929 could be brought back again, the economic situation would be utterly indefensible on moral grounds. The greedy scramble for private gain and special privilege, the gambling spirit and the ruthless determination to gain wealth by means fair and foul, the callous indifference to how the other half lived or at most the throwing of a few crumbs of philanthropy, the bitter exploitation of the weak and the brutal suppression of the workers as they attempted to organize in defense of their minimum rights, the cruel assumption that there must always be a wide gulf between the rich and the poor, the willingness to send unnumbered victims to their doom on the battlefield in defense of vested interests—all these and countless other evils are inherent in the economic order which held sway in 1929. God forbid that we should have any desire to return to that living hell!

Samuel Taylor Coleridge photo
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon photo
Kurt Vonnegut photo

“If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC”

Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) American writer

As quoted in "Vonnegut's Blues For America" Sunday Herald (7 January 2006)
Various interviews

John Scott photo

“It is better that the law should be certain than that every judge should speculate upon improvements in it.”

John Scott (1751–1838) British barrister and politician, born 1751

Sheldon v. Goodrich, 8 Ves. 481, 497 (1803)

Kurt Vonnegut photo

“If I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, "Kurt is up in heaven now."”

That's my favorite joke.
A Man Without a Country (2005)

Related topics