Death Sentence Quotes

“Many men would take the death-sentence without a whimper, to escape the life-sentence which fate carries in her other hand.”
― T.E. Lawrence

“I would prove to you that being different isn't a death sentence but a call to arms.”
― Jodi Picoult, Handle with Care

“Is it not He whose immortal hand... has written there the death sentence of tyrants? He did not create kings to devour the human race. He did not create priests to harness us, like vile animals, to the chariots of kings and to give to the world examples of baseness, pride, perfidy, avarice, debauchery and falsehood. He created the universe to proclaim His power.

[The Cult of the Supreme Being]”
― Maximilien de Robespierre

“Gates got up, but not fast or jerkily, with the same slowness that had always characterized him. He wiped the sweat off his palms by running them lightly down his sides. As though he were going to shake hands with somebody.

He was. He was going to shake hands with death.

He wasn't particularly frightened. Not that he was particularly brave. It was just that he didn't have very much imagination. Rationalizing, he knew that he wasn't going to be alive anymore ten minutes from now. Yet he wasn't used to casting his imagination ten minutes ahead of him, he'd always kept it by him in the present. He couldn't visualize it. So he wasn't as unnerved by it as the average man would have been.

("3 Kills For 1")”
― Cornell Woolrich, Night and Fear: A Centenary Collection of Stories by Cornell Woolrich

“...there are just some people you cannot find the good in. But who am I to decide if someone should be killed for murdering a child...instead of for murdering a drug addict during a deal that went bad...or even if we should be killing the inmate himself? I'm not smart enough to be able to say which life is worth more than the other. I don't know if anyone is.”
― Jodi Picoult, Change of Heart

“Kushirikiana na maadui wa nchi yetu ni hatia ya kosa la uhaini. Adhabu yake ni kifo, au kifungo cha maisha.”
― Enock Maregesi

“Not long ago I was much amused by imagining—what if the fancy suddenly took me to kill some one, a dozen people at once, or to do some thing awful, something considered the most awful crime in the world—what a predicament my judges would be in, with my having only a fortnight to live, now that corporal punishment and torture is abolished. I should die comfortably in hospital, warm aad snug, with an attentive doctor, and very likely much more snug and comfortable than at home. I wonder that the idea doesn't strike people in my position, if only as a joke.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Idiot

“The inmates made jokes about the chair, the way people always make jokes about things that frighten them but can't be gotten away from.”
― Stephen King, The Green Mile

“Kusaliti nchi, ambayo majeshi ya ulinzi na usalama yameundwa kuilinda, ni miongoni mwa makosa makubwa kabisa kuweza kufanywa na mtu! Adhabu yake ni kifungo cha maisha jela, au kunyongwa hadi kufa.”
― Enock Maregesi

“Unaweza kusaliti nchi kwa sababu za kiitikadi, kisiasa, matatizo ya akili, au pesa. Ukifanya hivyo na ukabainika; utawajibika kwa adhabu ya kifo, au maisha.”
― Enock Maregesi

“The wide corridor up the centre of E Block was floored with linoleum the colour of tired old limes, and so what was the Last Mile at other prisons was called the Green Mile at Cold Mountain.”
― Stephen King, The Green Mile

“In order to maintain a modicum of sanity needed to continue the vigorous fight for survival, we busy ourselves with repressing and then remembering that our ultimate fate is death. Living vigorously necessitates sparring with the forerunning concept of death. At times, it seems necessary to refuse acknowledging the tragic brevity of our existence while we greedily chase our innermost dream of experiencing and voicing the ecstasy of life. We dual constantly between the conflicting emotions wrung from expressing our enthusiasm for life, and capitulating to the dire ramifications of growing despondency given our keen awareness that we are operating under a death sentence. We begin in earnest and gladness, but we must be ever vigilant to avoid unraveling in despondency and madness.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“When the condemned man saw the gallows, he knew the hypocrisy of life was over and that lies would serve him no more. He mumbled some defeated truths and left this world. The spectators were aghast and fascinated as the body swung and was still. They went about their business.”
― Stewart Stafford

“A person who accepts that they are condemned to death and who holds no belief in a god created afterlife is a realist.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“Ni får fri bostad, värme, lyse och betjäning av staten; det är mycket mer än ni förtjänar, svarade Krestian Ivanovitj. Hans ord ljöd stränga och skräckinjagande som ett domslut.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Double

“Ni inbillar er att en oskyldig dödsdömd är annorlunda än en vanlig dödsdömd, men det är ju inte alls fallet, eftersom bilorna i bägge fallen är identiska, eftersom bödelns obarmhärtighet i bägge fallen är like stor, eftersom han i världens ögon är lika skyldig som den skyldige.”
― Stig Dagerman, Processen ; Anarkismen ; Vår nattliga badort ; Den dödsdömde

“Tenía más remordimientos antes de mi condena, desde entonces parece que no hay lugar para nada más que para pensar en la muerte; sin embargo, me gustaría arrepentirme mucho”
― Victor Hugo, El último día de un condenado

“Death is a huge cliff and when you are about to be thrown off it, like an Aztec sacrifice, other problems on the valley floor look very small, but once on the ground with the rest of the world they become again of dominating proportions.”
― Elizabeth Ironside, Death in the Garden

“I've seen so much and lived it all. I  wanted  to  bite   the  earth  and  taste  it.  It  is  both  bitter  and  sweet,  and   if  I  had  my  time  to  live  over  again,  I  wouldn’t  change a  damn  thing —  Reg  Spiers”
― Julie McSorley Marcus McSorley

“Ale zawsze nadchodzi godzina w historii, kiedy ten, co ośmiela się powiedzieć, że dwa i dwa to cztery, jest karany śmiercią.”
― Albert Camus, The Plague

“A death sentence was a death sentence, no matter how carefully it was worded.”
― Robert Ferrigno, Heart of the Assassin

“...I think that the love I sent to him was a merciless thing. I sent him love in exchange for his death; I didn't love him in exchange for his death. I was not intending to console and love him because he was sentenced to death.”
― Ayako Sono, No Reason for Murder

“The Damned Axe by Stewart Stafford

The axe decapitates a head,
Society's ills get quickly shed,
Can we trust what we don't see?
The masked executioner's decree.

A death by hacks couldn't be worse,
Carnifex of the jingling cutpurse,
Blood is spilt to slake the thirst,
In the name of God, the law comes first.

A pantomime of barbarity,
To lose one's head so publicly,
And then be held up mockingly,
The crowd disperses hastily.

© Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“For if in the course of what has been a long career I have had occasion to call for the death penalty, never as strongly as today have I felt this painful duty made easier, lighter, clearer by the certain knowledge of a sacred imperative and by the horror I feel when I look into a man's face and all I see is a monster.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger