Nathaniel Lindley, Baron Lindley Quotes

A proceeding may be perfectly legal and may yet be opposed to sound commercial principles.

A very ingenious attempt to drive a coach-and-four through this Act of Parliament.

I know of no duty of the Court which it is more important to observe, and no powers of the Court which it is more important to enforce, than its power of keeping public bodies within their rights. The moment public bodies exceed their rights] they do so to the injury and oppression of private individuals, and those persons are entitled to be protected from injury arising from such operations of public bodies.

I think that common law is better than equity.

One does not like to differ from a man without knowing the reasons which influenced him.

I confess that when I am sought to be driven to a conclusion which appears to me unreasonable and unjust, I at once suspect the validity of the premises, even if I can detect no flaw in the reasoning from them.

Unless Parliament has conferred upon the Court that power in language which is unmistakable, the Court is not to assume that Parliament intended to do that which so seriously affect foreigners who are not resident here, and might give offence to foreign Governments. Unless Parliament has used such plain terms as show that they really intended us to do that, we ought not to do it.

When we find a series of decisions running down from the time of Sir William Grant, we should be very cautious, and very slow to overrule them.

Trade unions up to a certain point have been recognised now as organs for good. They are the only means by which workmen can protect themselves from the tyranny of those who employ them. But the moment that trade unions become tyrants in their turn, they are engines for evil: they have no right to prevent people from working on any terms that they choose.

I take it that reasonable human conduct is part of the ordinary course of things.

There is nothing illegal in keeping up a tomb; on the contrary, it is a very laudable thing to do.

I do not see why, if we can tell what a man intends, and can give effect to his intention as expressed, we should be driven out of it by other cases or decisions in other cases. I always protest against anything of the sort.

We, as lawyers, as men of business, as men of experience, know perfectly well what evils necessarily result from handing over a great family estate to a mortgagee in possession, whose only chance of getting his money is to sacrifice the interests of everybody to money-getting.

A salvage service which hardly exceeds ordinary towage is naturally remunerated on a very different scale from an heroic rescue from imminent destruction.

It appears to me wrong in principle for any Court or Judge to impose fetters on the exercise by themselves or others of powers which are left by law to their discretion in each case as it arises.