No outward doors of a man's house can in general be broken open to execute any civil process; though in criminal cases the public safety supersedes the private.

Herein indeed consists the excellence of the English government, that all parts of it form a mutual check upon each other.

Free men have arms; slaves do not.

The most universal and effectual way of discovering the true meaning of law, when the words are dubious, is by considering the reason and spirit of it; or the cause which moved the legislator to enact it. for when this reason ceased, the law itself ought likewise to cease with it.

In all tyrannical governments the supreme magistracy, or the right both of making and of enforcing the laws, is vested in one and the same man, or one and the same body of men; and wherever these two powers are united together, there can be no public liberty.

By marriage the husband and wife are one person in law, that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during marriage.

Every wanton and causeless restraint of the will of the subject, whether practiced by a monarch, a nobility, or a popular assembly, is a degree of tyranny.