Edward Coke
Edward Coke
Sir Edward Coke SL PC, formerly /ˈkuːk/; 1 February 1552 – 3 September 1634) was an English barrister, judge and, later, opposition politician, who is considered to be the greatest jurist of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras. Born into a middle-class family, Coke was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, before leaving to study at the Inner Temple, where he was called to the Bar on 20 April 1578. As a barrister he took part in several notable cases, including Slade's Case,...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionBusinessman
Date of Birth1 February 1552
The gladsome light of jurisprudence.
Law is the safest helmet.
Common law is common right.
It is a fiction, a shade, a nonentity, but a reality for legal purposes. A corporation aggregate is only in abstracto—it is invisible, immortal, and rests only in intendment and consideration of the law.
There is no jewel in the world comparable to learning; no learning so excellent as knowledge of laws.
The law compells no man to impossible things. The argument ab impossibili is forcible in law.
Reason is the life of the law.
The agreement of the parties cannot make that good which the law maketh void.
For when the law doth give any thing to one, it giveth impliedly whatsoever is necessary for the taking and enjoying of the same.
The law doth never enforce a man to doe a vaine thing.
The King himself should be under no man, but under God and the Law.
Reason is the life of the law; nay, the common law itself is nothing else but reasonThe law, which is perfection of reason.
And the law, that is the perfection of reason, cannot suffer anything that is inconvenient.
It is better, saith the law, to suffer a mischief that is peculiar to one, than an inconvenience that may prejudice many.