Witness

Witness

A witness is someone who has, who claims to have, or is thought, by someone with authority to compel testimony, to have knowledge relevant to an event or other matter of interest. In law a witness is someone who, either voluntarily or under compulsion, provides testimonial evidence, either oral or written, of what he or she knows or claims to know about the matter before some official authorized to take such testimony.

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Famous quotes containing the word witness:

    “Forsake me not thus, Adam! witness Heaven
    What love sincere and reverence in my heart
    I bear thee, and unweeting have offended,
    Unhappily deceived! Thy suppliant
    I beg, and clasp thy knees; beereave me not,
    Whereon I live, thy gentle looks, thy aid,
    Thy counsel in this uttermost distress,
    My only strength and stay: forlorn of thee,
    Whither shall I betake me, where subsist?
    John Milton (1608–1674)

    No one
    bears witness for the
    witness.
    Paul Celan [Paul Antschel] (1920–1970)

    Composed in the Tower before his execution
    These moving verses, and being brought at that time
    Painfully to the stake, submitted, declaring thus:
    “I implore my God to witness that I have made no crime.”
    Anthony Hecht (b. 1923)