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Men are not hanged for stealing horses, but that horses may not be stolen. — George Savile, Lord Halifax

Men are not hanged for stealing horses, but that horses may not be stolen.

George Savile, Lord Halifax
1750
★ 3.6
Provenance
Citation
Savile, George. "Of Punishment." A Character of King Charles The Second and Political, Moral and Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections. London: J. and R. Tonson and S. Draper, 1750.

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I say that there is no such thing as moral responsibility for past acts, no such thing as real justice in punishing them, for the reason that human beings are not stationary existences, but changing, growing, incessantly progressive organisms, which in no two moments are the same. Therefore justice, whose only possible mode of proceeding is to punish in present time for what is done in past time, must always punish a person more or less similar to, but never identical with, the one who committed the offence, and therein must be no justice.

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