Legal maxim

A legal maxim is an established principle or proposition of law, and a species of aphorism and general maxim. The word is considered to be a variant of the Latin maxima, though no exactly analogous word to maxim is found in surviving Roman law texts. However, the treatises of many of the Roman jurists on regular definitiones and sententiae iuris are to some degree collections of maxims. Most of the Latin maxims originate from the Medieval era in European states that used Latin as their legal language. See also: Corpus Juris Civilis · Regulæ Juris · William Noy · Edmund Wingate Quotes Forty Thousand Quotations (1917) Reported in: Charles Noel Douglas, ed., Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical (1917) A fault finds its own authors. A good judge decides fairly, preferring equity to strict law. All men are equal before the natural law. An equal has no power over an equal. Ancient custom is always held or regarded as law. Custom is held to be as a law. Custom is the best interpreter of laws. False in one thing, false in everything. In all things, but particularly in the law, there is equity. Let the judges answer to the question of law, and the jurors to the matter of fact. No man should be judge in his own case. That which had no force in the beginning can gain no strength from the lapse of time. The custom of the manor and the place must be observed. The law succors the ignorant. The laws sometimes sleep, but never die. The principal part of everything is the beginning. What otherwise is good and just, if it be aimed at by fraud or violence, becomes evil and unjust. When the death of a human being may be the consequence, no delay that is afforded is long. You are not to do evil that good may come of it. External links Category:Law