A common-law reference, free to all
Drawn from Coke, Bacon, Blackstone, Bouvier, Broom, Wharton, Jackson, and Justinian's Digest — every maxim, with its Latin original, plain English translation, source citation, and the situations where it applies.
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What are maxims of law?
Maxims of law are not modern inventions. They are the distilled judgments of two thousand years of common-law jurisprudence — the rules that govern Coke, Bacon, Blackstone, Story, and the founding generation who built the American constitutions on top of them.
Featured maxim
Malice is bitter; it is the character of a wicked mind.
Malitia est acida; est mali animi affectus.
Malice is not mere ill-feeling but a settled disposition to do wrong — the law treats it as a distinct and aggravating element of culpability.
2 Bulstr. 49
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