Letter to John Wilson Croker (29 December 1835), quoted in L. J. Jennings (ed.), The Croker Papers: The Correspondence and Diaries of the Late Right Honourable John Wilson Croker, LL.D., F.R.S., Secretary to the Admiralty from 1809 to 1830, Vol. II (1884), p. 288
“The principal duty of a judge, is to suppress force and fraud; whereof force is the more pernicious, when it is open, and fraud, when it is close and disguised. Add thereto contentious suits, which ought to be spewed out, as the surfeit of courts.”
The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. Verulam Viscount St. Albans (1625), Of Judicature
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Francis Bacon 295
English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and auth… 1561–1626Related quotes
“Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues.”
“Let fraud supply the want of force in war.”
From Book II of Dryden's Aeneid; no exact Latin equivalent exists in Virgil's work, but compare: "Dolus, an virtus, quis in hoste requirat?" (Aeneid 2.390).
Misattributed
"The Prevention of Literature" (1946)
Context: Totalitarianism, however, does not so much promise an age of faith as an age of schizophrenia. A society becomes totalitarian when its structure becomes flagrantly artificial: that is, when its ruling class has lost its function but succeeds in clinging to power by force or fraud. Such a society, no matter how long it persists, can never afford to become either tolerant or intellectually stable. It can never permit either the truthful recording of facts or the emotional sincerity that literary creation demands. But to be corrupted by totalitarianism one does not have to live in a totalitarian country. The mere prevalence of certain ideas can spread a kind of poison that makes one subject after another impossible for literary purposes. Wherever there is an enforced orthodoxy — or even two orthodoxies, as often happens — good writing stops. This was well illustrated by the Spanish civil war. To many English intellectuals the war was a deeply moving experience, but not an experience about which they could write sincerely. There were only two things that you were allowed to say, and both of them were palpable lies: as a result, the war produced acres of print but almost nothing worth reading.
Review of Democracy in Europe (1878)
Context: The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections. To break off that point is to avert the danger. The common system of representation perpetuates the danger. Unequal electorates afford no security to majorities. Equal electorates give none to minorities. Thirty-five years ago it was pointed out that the remedy is proportional representation. It is profoundly democratic, for it increases the influence of thousands who would otherwise have no voice in the government; and it brings men more near an equality by so contriving that no vote shall be wasted, and that every voter shall contribute to bring into Parliament a member of his own opinions.
“When judges shall be obliged to go armed, it will be time for the courts to be closed.”
Said while travelling to California, having been advised to arm himself while there (1889); reported in J.K. Hoyt, The Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations (1896), p. 129.
“When pious frauds and holy shifts
Are dispensations and gifts.”
Canto III, line 1145
Source: Hudibras, Part I (1663–1664)
“Fraud includes the pretense of knowledge when knowledge there is none.”
Ultramares Corp. v. Touche, 255 N.Y. 170, 179, 174 N.E. 441, 444 (N.Y. 1931)
Judicial opinions
“If you see fraud and do not say fraud, you are a fraud.”
Source: Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (2012), p. 15