To punish a man because he has committed a crime, or because he is believed, though unjustly, to have committed a crime, is not persecution. To punish a man, because we infer from the nature of some doctrine which he holds, or from the conduct of other persons who hold the same doctrines with him, that he will commit a crime, is persecution, and is, in every case, foolish and wicked.
Interpretation
Punishing someone based on assumptions about their beliefs is unjust and considered persecution.
In this quote, Thomas B. Macaulay distinguishes between legitimate punishment for actions and unjust persecution based on beliefs or inferred behaviors. He argues that punishing someone for what they might do based on their doctrine or the actions of others who share their beliefs is both irrational and immoral, emphasizing that such persecution stems from unfounded fears rather than actual wrongdoing.
In practice
In a discussion about legal reforms, one might quote this to emphasize the importance of due process.
None of the modes by which a magistrate is appointed, popular election, the accident of the lot, or the accident of birth, affords, as far as we can perceive, much security for his being wiser than any of his neighbours. The chance of his being wiser than all his neighbours together is still smaller.
Your Constitution is all sail and no anchor.
I wish I was as sure of anything as he is of everything.
Mere negation, mere Epicurean infidelity, as Lord Bacon most justly observes, has never disturbed the peace of the world. It furnishes no motive for action; it inspires no enthusiasm; it has no missionaries, no crusades, no martyrs.
What a blessing it is to love books as I love them;- to be able to converse with the dead, and to live amidst the unreal!
And to say that society ought to be governed by the opinion of the wisest and best, though true, is useless. Whose opinion is to decide who are the wisest and best?
The carnal person fears man, not God. The strong Christian fears God, not man. The weak Christian fears man too much, and God too little.
If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it.
There is only one class in the community that thinks more about money than the rich, and that is the poor. The poor can think of nothing else.
I have lived eighty years of life and know nothing for it, but to be resigned and tell myself that flies are born to be eaten by spiders and man to be devoured by sorrow.
The logic of the world is prior to all truth and falsehood.
Ender understood more than she said. Manipulation of gravity was one thing; deception by the officers was another; but the most important message was this: the adults are the enemy, not the other armies. They do not tell us the truth.
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