quote · Legacy record
We magistrates find that reason is the easiest thing in the world to dispense with; banished from our law courts as it is from our heads, we delight in trampling it underfoot, and that is what makes our judicial sentences such masterpieces, since (although commonsense never presides in them) those sentences are carried out with as much firmness as if people knew what they actually meant.
We magistrates find that reason is the easiest thing in the world to dispense with; banished from our law courts as it is from our heads, we delight in trampling it underfoot, and that is what makes our judicial sentences such masterpieces, since (although commonsense never presides in them) those sentences are carried out with as much firmness as if people knew what they actually meant.
Approximate author period: c. 1777 AD · early modern
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- Author or tradition
- Marquis de Sade
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin. - Historical period
- Approximate author period: c. 1777 AD · early modern
Approximate author-period evidence for Marquis de Sade: life dates 1740 to 1814. Wikidata Q123867, inspected 2026-10-08. Not a quotation composition date or independent verification of attribution. Source: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q123867 (accessed 2026-10-08).
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 285766; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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