But I do nothing upon myself, and yet I am my own executioner.
quote by John Donne
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Related quotes
Someone with an unrelenting heart is his own executioner.
If we are not our brother's keeper, at least let us not be his executioner.
quote by Marlon Brando
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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It would perhaps be nice to be alternately the victim and the executioner.
quote by Charles Baudelaire
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I heard say the executioner was very good, and I have a little neck.
quote by Anne Boleyn (19 May 1536)
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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Eat and take belly, because tomorrow the assistant of the executioner will come to take the skin.
If the dowry doesn't support her, even the executioner is disinterested.
If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner.
quote by Omar N. Bradley
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Though the dungeon, the scourge, and the executioner be absent, the guilty mind can apply the goad and scorch with blows.
Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner.
quote by Omar Bradley
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner.
quote by Omar Bradley
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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And as the hour approached for the execution, in his own mind, Collins became both the executioner and the victim. He would pace up and down, transformed in almost a kind of exorcism when he knew he was responsible for taking someone's life.
quote by Liam Neeson
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Charity But how shall we expect charity towards others, when we are uncharitable to ourselves? Charity begins at home, is the voice of the world; yet is every man his greatest enemy, and, as it were, his own executioner.
quote by Thomas Browne
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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0314 Executive Decision
‘Look! now briefly, mortal living head -
As severed from thy now so lifeless limbs
In brief and, who knows, truthful, godly view,
So solemn, oncely, rare - that fleshly instrument
That thou hath used, misused…
And learn this last of life’s live lessons, quick and dread
In these few seconds of a living death…’
So Dean John Donne might have wrung out
that detail, had he known it – tolled
his solemn, tortured, feargod, ringing knell
- had he but known this ‘metaphysical’ quaint fact:
that, when the executioner’s sharp axeblade
slices through your neck with such finality,
the head maintains its human faculties
for eight brief seconds after body falls;
the executioner, it’s said, with great formality, then
takes hold that still-life head by its warm hair,
and turns it round with all solemnity,
to gaze its last repentence or regret
upon its frail accomplice on life’s way;
the gathered audience awed to silent, ice-cold heart..
last freeze-frame photo of an undeveloped film.
This solemn final courtesy of soul to soul
I’ll leave to metaphysicals, to speak life whole.
poem by Michael Shepherd
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If the executioner goes, my package will never be made public. If he doesn't go, it will be made public exactly fifty years from the day the bill for a moratorium on capital punishment is defeated.
quote by Caryl Chessman
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Execution of James Graham, Marquis of Montrose
'Twas in the year of 1650, and on the twenty-first of May,
The city of Edinburgh was put into a state of dismay
By the noise of drums and trumpets, which on the air arose,
That the great sound attracted the notice of Montrose.
Who enquired at the Captain of the guard the cause of it,
Then the officer told him, as he thought most fit,
That the Parliament dreading an attempt might be made to rescue him,
The soldiers were called out to arms, and that had made the din.
Do I, said Montrose, continue such a terror still?
Now when these good men are about my blood to spill,
But let them look to themselves, for after I am dead,
Their wicked consciences will be in continual dread.
After partaking of a hearty breakfast, he commenced his toilet,
Which, in his greatest trouble, he seldom did forget.
And while in the act of combing his hair,
He was visited by the Clerk Register, who made him stare,
When he told him he shouldn't be so particular with his head,
For in a few hours he would be dead;
But Montrose replied, While my head is my own I'll dress it at my ease,
And to-morrow, when it becomes yours, treat it as you please.
He was waited upon by the Magistrates of the city,
But, alas! for him they had no pity.
He was habited in a superb cloak, ornamented with gold and silver lace;
And before the hour of execution an immense assemblage of people were round the place.
From the prison, bareheaded, in a cart, they conveyed him along the Watergate
To the place of execution on the High Street, where about thirty thousand people did wait,
Some crying and sighing, a most pitiful sight to see,
All waiting patiently to see the executioner hang Montrose, a man of high degree.
Around the place of execution, all of them were deeply affected,
But Montrose, the noble hero, seemed not the least dejected;
And when on the scaffold he had, says his biographer Wishart,
Such a grand air and majesty, which made the people start.
As the fatal hour was approaching when he had to bid the world adieu,
He told the executioner to make haste and get quickly through,
But the executioner smiled grimly, but spoke not a word,
Then he tied the Book of Montrose's Wars round his neck with a cord.
Then he told the executioner his foes would remember him hereafter,
And he was as well pleased as if his Majesty had made him Knight of the Garter;
Then he asked to be allowed to cover his head,
But he was denied permission, yet he felt no dread.
He then asked leave to keep on his cloak,
But was also denied, which was a most grievous stroke;
Then he told the Magistrates, if they could invent any more tortures for him,
He would endure them all for the cause he suffered, and think it no sin.
On arriving at the top of the ladder with great firmness,
His heroic appearance greatly did the bystanders impress,
Then Montrose asked the executioner how long his body would be suspended,
Three hours was the answer, but Montrose was not the least offended.
Then he presented the executioner with three or four pieces of gold,
Whom he freely forgave, to his honour be it told,
And told him to throw him off as soon as he uplifted his hands,
While the executioner watched the fatal signal, and in amazement stands.
And on the noble patriot raising his hands, the executioner began to cry,
Then quickly he pulled the rope down from the gibbet on high,
And around Montrose's neck he fixed the rope very gently,
And in an instant the great Montrose was launched into eternity.
Then the spectators expressed their disapprobation by general groan,
And they all dispersed quietly, and wended their way home
And his bitterest enemies that saw his death that day,
Their hearts were filled with sorrow and dismay.
Thus died, at the age of thirty-eight, James Graham, Marquis of Montrose,
Who was brought to a premature grave by his bitter foes;
A commander who had acquired great military glory
In a short space of time, which cannot be equalled in story.
poem by William Topaz McGonagall
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Hands of my Executioner
And as the hands of my executioner
twitching in joyful anticipation
reaches for my bottle of sparks
I notice the hands on my watch
as it inches yet another inch forward
in recorded time
towards nothing in particular
courageous like a father
the coward turned his back on past
and ran
poem by Carsten Thomsen
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Cruel and Unusual
Cruel and Unusual
by Ted L Glines
Is lethal injection
cruel and unusual?
Obviously painful,
therefore cruel,
but is it unusual?
No, lethal injection is
the usual death penalty
in some states.
The way that Jesus died
was cruel
but not unusual;
Romans did it all the time.
We like to view the Cross
as the choice of Jesus
to save us sinners,
but He was given no choice.
Our Cross is a Roman
symbol of life-death power;
arrogance in its darkest hour.
Even when they were pagans,
Romans had Catholic DNA
(miniscule time-warp there) .
What do we do with a man that kills
for anger or just for thrills,
how do we put his evil to rest
and avoid the cruelty test?
The man who injects the drug
or he who pulls the switch,
executioner,
is a murderer at best
paying a cost,
his soul is (maybe?) lost.
There abides a greater mandate;
(I believe it is greater)
Thou Shalt Not Kill
(murder if you like) .
How do we measure “unusual”
“cruel”
against that?
If I found a murderer, I would put him in the hands of the family of the person he had killed, and they could exact their chosen retribution on him. Yes, this is a tribal way of dealing with a murderer. Is murder a sin? I certainly would never encumber myself with the sin of murdering him, myself. Would you? Nor would I pay a public servant to be his executioner, for that would encumber me with the sin of demanding his murder (tax-paying does not let you avoid the sin) . Even an atheist must address his own self-blame for murdering... a murderer (Catch 22) .
poem by Ted L Glines
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Faking Friendship
It is to darkness I run,
It is to darkness I hide.
It is to you I reached,
It is to you I lied.
You won my respect,
Both inside and out.
It was with you I wished,
Something good would sprout.
I trusted you through,
the very thick and thin.
Hoping most dearly,
that your trust I'd win.
And then I fall short,
and realise the miss.
I realise it now,
How it was me you'd diss.
It hurt so much,
so much more than you'd know.
Like an executioner's axe,
striking the final blow.
I wish I never saw it,
and yet I already did.
And then I just tell myself,
you're just a pathetic kid.