Execution Quotes

“It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners.”
― Albert Camus, Neither Victims Nor Executioners

“If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses.”
― Lenny Bruce

“They want us to be afraid.
They want us to be afraid of leaving our homes.
They want us to barricade our doors
and hide our children.
Their aim is to make us fear life itself!
They want us to hate.
They want us to hate 'the other'.
They want us to practice aggression
and perfect antagonism.
Their aim is to divide us all!
They want us to be inhuman.
They want us to throw out our kindness.
They want us to bury our love
and burn our hope.
Their aim is to take all our light!
They think their bricked walls
will separate us.
They think their damned bombs
will defeat us.
They are so ignorant they don’t understand
that my soul and your soul are old friends.
They are so ignorant they don’t understand
that when they cut you I bleed.
They are so ignorant they don’t understand
that we will never be afraid,
we will never hate
and we will never be silent
for life is ours!”
― Kamand Kojouri

“To sit in solemn silence on a dull, dark dock
in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock
awaiting the sensation of a short, sharp shock
from a cheap and chippy chopper on a big, black block.”
― W.S. Gilbert, The Mikado

“[T]he useful idiots, the leftists who are idealistically believing in the beauty of the Soviet socialist or Communist or whatever system, when they get disillusioned, they become the worst enemies. That’s why my KGB instructors specifically made the point: never bother with leftists. Forget about these political prostitutes. Aim higher. [...] They serve a purpose only at the stage of destabilization of a nation. For example, your leftists in the United States: all these professors and all these beautiful civil rights defenders. They are instrumental in the process of the subversion only to destabilize a nation. When their job is completed, they are not needed any more. They know too much. Some of them, when they get disillusioned, when they see that Marxist-Leninists come to power—obviously they get offended—they think that they will come to power. That will never happen, of course. They will be lined up against the wall and shot.”
― Yuri Bezmenov

“I await your sentence with less fear than you pass it. The time will come when all will see what I see.”
― Giordano Bruno

“It is cold at six-forty in the morning on a March day in Paris, and seems even colder when a man is about to be executed by firing squad.”
― Frederick Forsyth, The Day of the Jackal

“The elegance under pressure is the result of fearlessness.”
― Ashish Patel

“Man of an hard heart! Hear me, Proud, Stern, and Cruel! You could have saved me; you could have restored me to happiness and virtue, but would not! You are the destroyer of my Soul; You are my Murderer, and on you fall the curse of my death and my unborn Infant’s! Insolent in your yet-unshaken virtue, you disdained the prayers of a Penitent; But God will show mercy, though you show none. And where is the merit of your boasted virtue? What temptations have you vanquished? Coward! you have fled from it, not opposed seduction. But the day of Trial will arrive! Oh! then when you yield to impetuous passions! when you feel that Man is weak, and born to err; When shuddering you look back upon your crimes, and solicit with terror the mercy of your God, Oh! in that fearful moment think upon me! Think upon your Cruelty! Think upon Agnes, and despair of pardon!”
― Matthew Gregory Lewis, The Monk

“The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword.”
― George R.R. Martin

“Those who have witnessed executions say there is no sound worse than the weeping of mother watching her son being put to death.

They're wrong. There is one sound that is worse.

There is silence.”
― carolee dean, Take Me There

“{Comment to Delambre on chemist Antoine Lavoisier's execution during the French Revolution}

Only a moment to cut off that head and a hundred years may not give us another like it.”
― Joseph-Louis Lagrange

“I got hold of a copy of the video that showed how Saddam Hussein had actually confirmed himself in power. This snuff-movie opens with a plenary session of the Ba'ath Party central committee: perhaps a hundred men. Suddenly the doors are locked and Saddam, in the chair, announces a special session. Into the room is dragged an obviously broken man, who begins to emit a robotic confession of treason and subversion, that he sobs has been instigated by Syrian and other agents. As the (literally) extorted confession unfolds, names begin to be named. Once a fellow-conspirator is identified, guards come to his seat and haul him from the room. The reclining Saddam, meanwhile, lights a large cigar and contentedly scans his dossiers. The sickness of fear in the room is such that men begin to crack up and weep, rising to their feet to shout hysterical praise, even love, for the leader. Inexorably, though, the cull continues, and faces and bodies go slack as their owners are pinioned and led away. When it is over, about half the committee members are left, moaning with relief and heaving with ardent love for the boss. (In an accompanying sequel, which I have not seen, they were apparently required to go into the yard outside and shoot the other half, thus sealing the pact with Saddam. I am not sure that even Beria or Himmler would have had the nerve and ingenuity and cruelty to come up with that.)”
― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir

“Mom always said I was born to sit in the electric chair, but I'm proving her wrong. I'm going to die on my knees, begging for my life.”
― Bauvard, Some Inspiration for the Overenthusiastic

“Takamasa Saegusa: 'Seigen, a mere member of the Toudouza, had the effrontery to sully the sacred dueling ground. For that reason, our lord had already decided to subject him to tu-uchi before long. Cut off his head immediately, and stick it on a pike!'

Gennosuke could hardly believe his ears. Such an insult to Irako Seigen was unwarranted. It was pride. For Gennosuke, Irako Seigen was pride itself.

Takamasa Saegusa: 'Fujiki Gennosuke! It is the way of the samurai to take the head of the defeated enemy on the battleground. Do not hesitate! If you are a samurai, you must carry out the duty of a samurai!'

Samurai...

Saegusa, Lord of Izu, continued shouting, but Gennosuke did not attend. That word 'samurai' alone reverberated through his body.

If one aims at the juncture between the base of the skull and the spine, decapitation is not that difficult, but Gennosuke could muster no more strength than a baby. He grew pale and trembled with the strain. He could only hack with his sword as if he were sawing wood. He felt nauseated, as if his own cells one after another were being annihilated. But this...

Lord Tokugawa Tadanaga: 'I approve.'

Takamasa Saegusa: 'Fujiki Gennosuke, for this splendid action you have received words of thanks from our lord. As a sign of his exceptional approval, you shall be given employment at Sunpu Castle. This great debt will by no means be forgotten. From this day forward you must offer your life to our lord!'

Prostrating himself, Gennosuke vomited.”
― Takayuki Yamaguchi, シグルイ 15

“When the injustice is great enough, justice will lend me the strength needed to correct it. None may stand against it. It will shatter every barrier, sunder any shield, tear through any enchantment, and lend its servant the power to pass sentence. Know this: There is nothing on all the Planes that can stay the hand of justice when it is brought against them. It may unmake armies. It may sunder the thrones of gods. Know that for all who betray justice, I am their fate. And fate carries an executioner's axe.”
― Chris Avellone

“It is wrong to kill anyone. It is wrong to kill those who kill. It is wrong to kill the executioner. The laws on murder must be killed!”
― Charles Nodier

“He would have been half-hanged, taken down alive, castrated, his genitals stuffed in his mouth, his stomach slit open, and his intestines taken out and burnt, and his carcase chopped into four quarters.”
― John Broadbent, John Milton: Introductions

“A hanging, though, was something different. I got to thinking. We hadn’t never been to nothing just to have a good time. A hanging was special and we was all getting to go.”
― Eddie Whitlock, Evil Is Always Human

“They left two nights later. They had each a passable saddle-horse and a rifle and blanket and they had a mule that carried provisions of dried corn and beef and dates. They rode up into the dripping hills and in the first light Brown raised the rifle and shot the boy through the back of the head. The horse lurched forward and the boy toppled backward, the entire foreplate of his skull gone and the brains exposed. Brown halted his mount and got down and retrieved the sack of coins and took the boy’s knife and took his rifle and his powderflask and his coat and he cut the ears from the boy’s head and strung them onto his scapular and then he mounted up and rode on. The packmule followed and after a while so did the horse the boy had been riding.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West

“I don't kill helpless women. But you're nothing close to that. And you can't swear by a soul you've no owning of, vampire.”
― Jay Kristoff, Empire of the Damned

“But it's a tough thing, you see. It's so difficult being a merciful Queen.”
― Sara Ellie MacKenzie, Casting Shadows

“What had caused my sudden change of heart?

Then, I realized that I was not just mourning her.

There was a shift, a change, and it was all that Klenard needed. With no one to contest me, a new era was born. The kingdom can grow.

It was hope and I was frightened by it.”
― Sara Ellie MacKenzie, The Circle is Broken

“One noble died of treason, but there was always another who would continue plotting. Treason remains on the statute book, enshrined in law today, though not an oft used law. When we think of treason and tyrannical monarchs, Henry VIII is usually pretty high on the list. He redefined treason to be what he wanted it to be and, as a result, opened the doors to multitudes of treason trials and the depletion of the English nobility.”
― Helene Harrison, Tudor Executions: From Nobility to the Block

“Books, courses and contents help you get better at knowing what to do. Coaches helps you get better at doing what to do. Sometimes the answer is not more knowledge. Sometimes it is guided execution.”
― Jeff Ocaya

“Books, courses and contents help you get better at knowing what to do. Coaches helps you get better at doing what to do. Sometimes the answer is not more knowledge. Sometimes you need guided execution.”
― Jeff Ocaya

“Books, courses and contents help you get better at knowing what to do. Coaches help you get better at doing what to do. Sometimes the answer is not more knowledge. Sometimes what you need is guided execution - Get a coach!”
― Jeff Ocaya

“He was awake; it seemed like a long time, all dressed, sitting deep in the armchair, small with a grey face. I stopped ast the room entrance in silence, swallowed my words, and thought that maybe he didn’t even go to sleep that night. His facial colour reminded me of a teacher, dying from cancer.
‘Grandpa, what’s wrong? What’s wrong with you? Mother is coming home, did you hear?’ I came closer and touched his hand. It was colder than usual, and the frost went down my back. ‘Do you hear me? What’s wrong with you?’ I asked, and he was silent.
Suddenly, I understood everything.”
(-- Angelika Regossi, “Love in Communism. A Young Woman’s Adult Story”. Chapter 5: University of Life)


“‘Let me tell you this way. In the academy, we were told to marry early, before we go on the first shift. My first shift starts in a few months in July. I shall be half a year under the water in the submarine, carrying nuclear weapons. They advise us to marry and to make children as soon as possible because who knows what will be on that shift. Also, I told you about the radiation. I know submariners’ who cannot make children because of the radiation on the ship,’ said Prohor.
‘How to explain to you, my girl? To make children, a man needs an erection but the radiation kills it. I am afraid until I reach the rank of admiral, I shall be impotent … unable to make children …,’ Prohor told sadly from his bed.”
(-- Angelika Regossi, “Love in Communism. A Young Woman’s Adult Story”. Chapter 6: Fiance from Submarine)


“So, it happened there; between the two biggest islands of two big enemies, Japan and the USSR.
‘Now I recall that Prohor praised that they can attack unexpectedly from a submarine, from under the water, with nuclear rockets.’ I was astonished that I knew all these things, which earlier had never interested me.”
(-- Angelika Regossi, “Love in Communism. A Young Woman’s Adult Story”. Chapter 7: Between Two Men)


“‘Do you remember what I told you before I died? You promised me to think big! My little star, if you think big, you will become big! Use my diamonds and the wall clock to become big! Dream big, Anfisa—and you will be more than just a wife to a man.
‘But remember, you have to take diamonds and the clock outside the USSR, where they value these things.’ I heard my grandfather’s voice live, close, but I didn’t see him.”
(-- Angelika Regossi, “Love in Communism. A Young Woman’s Adult Story”. Chapter 8: Earner Marriage No. 1)”
― Angelika Regossi

“He was awake; it seemed like a long time, all dressed, sitting deep in the armchair, small with a grey face. I stopped at the room entrance in silence, swallowed my words, and thought that maybe he didn’t even go to sleep that night. His facial colour reminded me of a teacher, dying from cancer.
‘Grandpa, what’s wrong? What’s wrong with you? Mother is coming home, did you hear?’ I came closer and touched his hand. It was colder than usual, and the frost went down my back. ‘Do you hear me? What’s wrong with you?’ I asked, and he was silent.
Suddenly, I understood everything.”
(-- Angelika Regossi, “Love in Communism. A Young Woman’s Adult Story”. Chapter 5: University of Life)


“‘Let me tell you this way. In the academy, we were told to marry early, before we go on the first shift. My first shift starts in a few months in July. I shall be half a year under the water in the submarine, carrying nuclear weapons. They advise us to marry and to make children as soon as possible because who knows what will be on that shift. Also, I told you about the radiation. I know submariners’ who cannot make children because of the radiation on the ship,’ said Prohor.
‘How to explain to you, my girl? To make children, a man needs an erection but the radiation kills it. I am afraid until I reach the rank of admiral, I shall be impotent … unable to make children …,’ Prohor told sadly from his bed.”
(-- Angelika Regossi, “Love in Communism. A Young Woman’s Adult Story”. Chapter 6: Fiance from Submarine)


“So, it happened there; between the two biggest islands of two big enemies, Japan and the USSR.
‘Now I recall that Prohor praised that they can attack unexpectedly from a submarine, from under the water, with nuclear rockets.’ I was astonished that I knew all these things, which earlier had never interested me.”
(-- Angelika Regossi, “Love in Communism. A Young Woman’s Adult Story”. Chapter 7: Between Two Men)


“‘Do you remember what I told you before I died? You promised me to think big! My little star, if you think big, you will become big! Use my diamonds and the wall clock to become big! Dream big, Anfisa—and you will be more than just a wife to a man.
‘But remember, you have to take diamonds and the clock outside the USSR, where they value these things.’ I heard my grandfather’s voice live, close, but I didn’t see him.”
(-- Angelika Regossi, “Love in Communism. A Young Woman’s Adult Story”. Chapter 8: Earner Marriage No. 1)”
― Angelika Regossi, Love in Communism: A Young Woman's Adult Story

“Every accomplishment starts with: A choice to be chosen; A decision to be decided, &
An action plan to be executed.”
― Willbur Glenn Colaco, Drops of Wisdom: Applying Ancient Words of Wisdom in Today's Turbulent Times