Go Rin No Sho (1645), The Fire Book
        “Pooh Bah: This professional conscientiousness is highly creditable to you, but it places us in a very awkward position.
Koko: My good sir, the awkwardness of your position is grace itself compared with that of a man engaged in the act of cutting off his own head.”
    
    
    
    
        
        
        
            
            
        
        
        
        
        
        The Mikado (1885)
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
W. S. Gilbert 67
English librettist of the Gilbert & Sullivan duo 1836–1911Related quotes
“If you cut a branch out of my forests, I'd cut your head off!”
Source: Aşıkpaşaoğlu History
As quoted in Guy Arnold (1976), The last bunker: a report on white South Africa today, p. 192.
“It does you good to be tenants. It reminds you of your own true position in the world.”
                                        
                                        Part 10, section 15 - p.416 
Novels, Cloudstreet (1991)
                                    
Advice given to Dean John William Burgon, (29 November 1847), in response to the question: "Every studious man, in the course of a long and thoughtful life, has had occasion to experience the special value of some one axiom or precept. Would you mind giving me the benefit of such a word of advice?"; quoted in Lives of twelve good men, by John William Burgon, 1888, vol. 1 p. 73.