Hangman Quotes

• Having the critics praise you is like having the hangman say you've got a pretty neck.

  Eli Wallach

  Beauty, Sarcastic, Sarcasm

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• If you violate Nature's laws you are your own prosecuting attorney, judge, jury, and hangman.

  Luther Burbank

  Law, Judging, Environmental

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• His achievements read like the graffiti on the walls of a hangman's changing room.

  Jonathan Larson

  Wall, Achievement, Graffiti

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• Dweller in yon dungeon dark, Hangman of creation, mark! Who in widow weeds appears, Laden with unhonoured years, Noosing with care a bursting purse, Baited with many a deadly curse?

  Robert Burns

  Weed, Dark, Years

  Robert Burns, James Currie, Gilbert Burns (1820). “The Works of Robert Burns;: With an Account of His Life, and a Criticism of His Writings, : to which are Prefixed, Some Observations on the Character and Condition of the Scottish Peasantry”, p.265

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• I ran into the preacher, said God was on my side, then I ran into the hangman.

  Neil Young

  Religious, Religion, Sides

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• No metal can--no, not the hangman's axe--bear half the keenness of thy sharp envy.

  William Shakespeare

  Envy, Half, Bears

  William Shakespeare (2016). “The New Oxford Shakespeare: Modern Critical Edition: The Complete Works”, p.1257, Oxford University Press

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• Young writers if they are to mature require a period of between three and seven years in which to live down their promise. Promise is like the mediaeval hangman who after settling the noose, pushed his victim off the platform and jumped on his back, his weight acting a drop while his jockeying arms prevented the unfortunate from loosening the rope. When he judged him dead he dropped to the ground.

  Cyril Connolly

  Writing, Years, Promise

  Cyril Connolly (2008). “Enemies of Promise”, p.109, University of Chicago Press

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• Criticism is now become mere hangman's work, and meddles only with the faults of authors ; nay, the critic is disgusted less with their absurdities than excellence ; and you cannot displease him more than in leaving him little room for his malice.

  John Dryden

  Leaving, Excellence, Criticism

  John Dryden, John Mitford (1836). “The Works of John Dryden: In Verse and Prose, with a Life”, p.424

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• When rowan leaves are dank and rusting And rowan berries red as blood, When in my palm the hangman's thrusting The final nail with bony thud, When, over the foul flooding river, Upon the wet grey height, I toss Before my land's grim looks, and shiver As I swing here upon the cross, Then, through the blood and weeping, stretches My dying sight to space remote; I see upon the river's reaches Christ sailing to me in a boat.

  Alexander Blok

  Blood, Land, Rivers

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• I go where there are no slaves, hangmen or oppressors; where faith does not kill; where the one who reigns is God.

  Jose Rizal

  Doe, Reign, Noli Me Tangere

  "Mi Ultimo Adios". Poem by José Rizal, translated by Charles Derbyshire. Stanza 13, 1897.

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• Adding an overarching tier of tyrants - the EU - to European governments has benefited Europeans as a second hangman enhances the health of a condemned man.

  Ilana Mercer

  Men, Government, Tyrants

  "Adieu to the Evil EU". original.antiwar.com. June 10, 2005.

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• Priests, kings, statesmen, soldiers, bankers and public functionaries of all sorts; policemen, jailers and hangmen; capitalists, usurers, businessmen and property-owners; lawyers, economists and politicians - all of them, down to the meanest grocer, repeat in chorus the words of Voltaire, that if there were no God it would be necessary to invent Him.

  Mikhail Bakunin

  Kings, Soldier, Atheism

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• Not nature, but the "genius of mankind," has knotted the hangman's noose with which it can execute itself at any moment.

  Carl Jung

  Genius, Moments, Mankind

  Carl Gustav Jung, Murray Stein (1999). “Jung on Christianity”, p.255, Princeton University Press

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• It was rumored, in 1946, that the hangman in Nuremberg adjusted the nooses of some of the condemned to magnify the pain of suffocation. Such sadism was not called for then and is not called for now. But if fornication is wrong, there is no denying that it can bring pleasure. The death of Saddam Hussein at rope's end brings a pleasure that is undeniable, and absolutely chaste in its provenance.

  William F. Buckley, Jr.

  Pain, Sadism, Rope

  "Spare Thoughts on Saddam" by William F. Buckley Jr., www.nationalreview.com. December 29, 2006.

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• That's why I'm a big supporter of the death penalty. I want to be the hangman. I would put many more people to death like the kids who want to kill other people, I'd put 'em to death. Postal workers who get arrested, they have mental problems. You know what? When you're dead you don't have a mental problem. If you take a life, I will take yours. Put me in charge, I will fix it.

  Gene Simmons

  Kids, People, Ems

  Interview with Tim Cashmere, www.noise11.com. April 25, 2016.

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• It would repel me less to be a hangman than a soldier, because the one is obliged to put to death only criminals sentenced by the law, but the other kills honest men who like himself bathe in innocent blood at the bidding of some superior.

  George Santayana

  War, Men, Blood

  George Santayana (1986). “The Works of George Santayana”

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• If you must mount the gallows, give a jest to the crowd, a coin the hangman, and make the drop with a smile on your lips.

  Robert Jordan

  Smile, Giving, Coins

  Robert Jordan (2010). “The Fires of Heaven: Book Five of 'The Wheel of Time'”, p.577, Macmillan

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• A tiny little wooden man [was] slowly ascending the steps to a real set of gallows, both perched on a box that read: Reusable Hangman — Spell It Or He’ll Swing!

  J. K. Rowling

  Real, Men, Swings

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• Christianity is a metaphysics of the hangman.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Christianity, Metaphysics

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1977). “The Portable Nietzsche”, p.309, Penguin

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• Even the worse of jobs has their pleasures, if I were a grave digger or a hangmen, there are some people I could work for with a great deal of enjoyment.

  Douglas William Jerrold

  Jobs, Work, People

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• Autocracy cannot do without its twin agents: a hangman and a priest, the first to suppress popular resistance by force, the second to sweeten and embellish the lot of the oppressed with empty promises of a heavenly kingdom.

  Vladimir Lenin

  Promise, Religion, Atheism

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• Every guilty person is his own hangman.

  Seneca the Younger

  Philosophical, Punishment, Guilt

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• Most people approve of capital punishment, but most people wouldn't do the hangman's job.

  George Orwell

  Jobs, Punishment, People

  George Orwell (2016). “The Road to Wigan Pier”, p.97, Jester House Publishing

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• The fear o' hell's a hangman's whip To haud the wretch in order; But where ye feel your honour grip, Let that aye be your border.

  Robert Burns

  Fear, Order, Hell

  Robert Burns, P. A. N., Robert Eldridge Aris WILLMOTT (1866). “The Poetical Works of Robert Burns. Edited by the Rev. Robert Aris Willmott. New Edition. With Numerous Additions. [The Preface Signed: P. A. N.]”, p.70

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• How long would authority ... exist, if not for the willingness of the mass to become soldiers, policemen, jailers, and hangmen.

  Emma Goldman

  Long, Soldier, Authority

  Emma Goldman (2015). “Anarchism: Top Crime Collections”, p.42, 谷月社

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