#gallows

A lost election can have the jolt of a drop through the gallows door, leading to a dark night of the soul in which the future presses down like a cloud that will never lift. ↗

— James Wolcott

#dark #door #down #drop #election

We who think we are about to die will laugh at anything. ↗

— Terry Pratchett

#gallows-humor #humor #laughing #death

So this is it," said Arthur, "We are going to die." "Yes," said Ford, "except... no! Wait a minute!" He suddenly lunged across the chamber at something behind Arthur's line of vision. "What's this switch?" he cried. "What? Where?" cried Arthur, twisting round. "No, I was only fooling," said Ford, "we are going to die after all. ↗

— Douglas Adams

#humor #science #humor

Nothing like an arcane literary debate with your tyrannical master while you pass the time leading to your execution. ↗

— Elizabeth Wein

#humor

Live, die, something else lives. The very soil humanity walks upon is built up from death. Digging into a flowerbed means digging into bones. ↗

— M. Jones

#death #frankie-and-formaldehyde #gallows-humor #life #death

The merciful precepts of Christ will at last suffuse the Code and it will glow with their radiance. Crime will be considered an illness with its own doctors to replace your judges and its hospitals to replace your prisons. Liberty shall be equated with health. Ointments and oil shall be applied to limbs that were once shackled and branded. Infirmities that once were scourged with anger shall now be bathed with love. The cross in place of the gallows: sublime and yet so simple. ↗

— Victor Hugo

#crime #cross #gallows #hospitals #illness

The ego refuses to be distressed by the provocations of reality, to let itself be compelled to suffer. It insists that it cannot be affected by the traumas of the external world; it shows, in fact, that such traumas are no more than occasions for it to gain pleasure. ↗

— Sigmund Freud

#humor

If we were brought to trial for the crimes we have committed against ourselves, few would escape the gallows. ↗

— Paul Eldridge

#brought #committed #crimes #escape #few