Top 15 Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon Quotes

To enter into the hearts of men belongs to him who can explore the human heart.

I have heard that it was the perfection of the administration of criminal justice to take care that the punishment should come to few and the example to many.

If I were master of eloquence I would not make the decision of this cause a stage upon which I would display that eloquence. Those things which are very proper for advocates to do, become very improper for the Judge, who has nothing to do, but to state to the jury the short grounds upon which the cause ought to proceed.

The situation the Lord Mayor holds is the first officer of the first city in the world in point of commerce and riches, and everything that can constitute the magnificence of a city. He is a judicial officer, and a municipal officer too, and from these combined characters there are duties incumbent upon him, which by all the ties that can bind a man to the discharge of duty, he is bound to discharge. It stands at the head of his duties, next after protecting the religion which binds us to God, to govern that civil policy which binds government together, and prevents us from being a state of anarchy and confusion.

No person is less disposed than I am to accommodate the law to the particular convenience of the case: but I am always glad when I find the strict law and the justice of the case going hand in hand together.

The interest of the public is never better advanced than when we can inculcate by our rules the advantage of acting honestly.

It is necessary for Courts of Justice to hold a strict hand over summary proceedings before magistrates, and I never will agree to relax any of the rules by which they have been bound. Their jurisdiction is of a limited nature, and they must shew that the party was brought within it.

Justice requires that a party should be duly summoned and fully heard before he is condemned.

I have often thought since that there is sound sense in what was once said by the late Lord C. J. Eyre, that the sooner a bad precedent was gotten rid of, the better.

It is our duty to take care that persons in pursuing their own particular interests do not transgress those laws which were made for the benefit of the whole community.

We must judge of a man's motives from his overt acts.

I cannot help observing, that many of those who have written in support of our ancient system of jurisprudence, the growth of the wisdom of man for so many ages, are not as they are alleged by some to be men writing from their closets without any knowledge of the affairs of life, but persons mixing with the mass of society, and capable of receiving practical experience of the soundness of the maxims they inculcate.

The common law, though not to be found in the written records of the realm, yet has been long well known. It is coeval with civilised society itself, and was formed from time to time by the wisdom of man. Good sense did not come with the Conquest, or at any other one time, but grew and increased from time to time with the wisdom of mankind.

We are obliged to hear all that witnesses have to say; but it is a canticle of Courts of justice that witnesses non numerentur sed ponderentur: they are not to be numbered but weighed. It is the nature of the human mind, it is the perfection of the human heart, to serve a friend in distress; but in doing so, a man should not transgress the higher calls of religion and morality, the obligations of an oath. We are not monks and recluses, as was said in another place,1 but come from a class in society that I hope and believe gives us opportunities of seeing as much of the world, and that has as much virtue amongst its members as any other, however elevated.

Though in a state of society some must have greater luxuries and comforts than others, yet all should have the necessaries of life; and if the poor cannot exist, in vain may the rich look for happiness or prosperity. The legislature is never so well employed as when they look to the interests of those who are at a distance from them in the ranks of society. It is their duty to do so: religion calls for it; humanity calls for it; and if there are hearts who are not awake to either of those feelings, their own interests would dictate it.