The fear o’ hell’s a hangman’s whip to haud the wretch in order; But where ye feel your honor grip, let that aye be your border.
I always say, if you must mount the gallows, give a jest to the crowd, a coin to the hangman, and make the drop with a smile on your lips.
There is a stillness between us, a period of restlessness that ties my stomach in a hangman’s noose. It is this same lack in noise that lives, there! in the darkness of the grave, how it frightens me beyond all things.
The great principle of Justice: prevent crime rather than punish it. All that is needed to execute a guilty man is a firing squad or a hangman. To prevent there being guilty men requires great astuteness.
When things are difficult, awful, stressful, the thing that always gets you through is a sense of humour. I don't mean - well, maybe I do - laugh at the hangman as he puts the noose around your neck. But an eye, an ear, for the ridiculous, the absurd...
So if the ties that bind ever do come loose Tie them in a knot like a hangman's noose Cause I'll go to heaven or I'll go to hell Before I'll see you with someone else.
...Raleigh was later to write, after a duel the hangman was the one who bestowed the garland on the victor.
He looked the Prince up and down, like a hangman taking his measurements. 'Of course there will be a revolution,' he said. 'You are making a nation of Cromwells. But we can go beyond Cromwell, I hope. In fifteen years you tyrants and parasites will b...
Friar Tuck: [the Sheriff has taken the only coin from the Poor Box, and Friar Tuck is furious] You thieving scandal! Sheriff of Nottingham: Now, take it easy, Friar, I'm just doing my duty. Friar Tuck: Collecting taxes for that arrogant, greedy, ruth...
Want to play hangman? asks Theophile, and I ache to tell him that I have enough on my plate playing quadriplegic. But my communication system disqualifies repartee: the keenest rapier grows dull and falls flat when it takes several minutes to thrust ...
So you are tired of your life, young man! All the more reason have you to live. Anyone can die. A murderer has moral force enough to jeer at his hangman. It is very easy to draw the last breath. It can be accomplished successfully by a child or a war...
As I said, I don’t expect you to understand—” “And I don’t,” he cut in. “Ye ask how I can live a life that I know will end with the hangman’s noose. Well, at least I am alive. Ye might as well have climbed inside yer husband’s coffi...