What is maxim?

Famous quotes containing the word maxim:

“It is a maxim among these lawyers, that whatever hath been done before, may legally be done again: and therefore they take special care to record all the decisions formerly made against common justice and the general reason of mankind.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)

“The maxim of courts is that manner is power.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)