“You had better – and would much sooner when you had thought well of it – chop off that bandaged left hand of yours with your bandaged right hand, and then pass the chopper on to Wemmick there, to cut that off too.”
– Charles Dickens
Great Expectations, Chapter 51. Jaggers uses hyperbole in this warning to Pip about the destructive costs of revealing deep-rooted secrets about people. In the reference to cutting off hands, this is an allusion to Mark 9.43: “If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off.” The secret Jaggers is talking about is Estella’s parentage.