Spencer Tracy credited as playing...
Henry Drummond
- Matthew Harrison Brady: We must not abandon faith! Faith is the most important thing!
- Henry Drummond: Then why did God plague us with the capacity to think? Mr. Brady, why do you deny the one faculty of man that raises him above the other creatures of the earth, the power of his brain to reason? What other merit have we? The elephant is larger, the horse is swifter and stronger, the butterfly is far more beautiful, the mosquito is more prolific. Even the simple sponge is more durable. But does a sponge think?
- Matthew Harrison Brady: I don't know. I'm a man, not a sponge!
- Henry Drummond: But do you think a sponge thinks?
- Matthew Harrison Brady: If the Lord wishes a sponge to think, it thinks!
- Henry Drummond: Do you think a man should have the same privilege as a sponge?
- Matthew Harrison Brady: Of course!
- Henry Drummond: [Gesturing towards the defendant, Bertram Cates] Then this man wishes to have the same privilege of a sponge, he wishes to think!
- Judge: [after Drummond asks the judge for permission to withdraw form the case] Colonel Drummond, what reasons can you possibly have?
- Henry Drummond: [Indicates the crowd] Well, there are two hundred of them.
- [Crowd reacts angrily]
- Henry Drummond: And if that's not enough there's one more. I think my client has already been found guilty.
- Matthew Harrison Brady: [Rises] Is Mr. Drummond saying that this expression of an honest emotion will in any way influence the court's impartial administration of the law?
- Henry Drummond: I say that you cannot administer a wicked law impartially. You can only destroy, you can only punish. And I warn you, that a wicked law, like cholera, destroys every one it touches. Its upholders as well as its defiers.
- Judge: Colonel Drummond...
- Henry Drummond: Can't you understand? That if you take a law like evolution and you make it a crime to teach it in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools? And tomorrow you may make it a crime to read about it. And soon you may ban books and newspapers. And then you may turn Catholic against Protestant, and Protestant against Protestant, and try to foist your own religion upon the mind of man. If you can do one, you can do the other. Because fanaticism and ignorance is forever busy, and needs feeding. And soon, your Honor, with banners flying and with drums beating we'll be marching backward, BACKWARD, through the glorious ages of that Sixteenth Century when bigots burned the man who dared bring enlightenment and intelligence to the human mind!
- Judge: I hope counsel does not mean to imply that this court is bigoted.
- Henry Drummond: Well, your honor has the right to hope.
- Judge: I have the right to do more than that.
- Henry Drummond: You have the power to do more than that.
- [the Judge holds Drummond in contempt of court]
- [challenged to say if he considers anything holy]
- Henry Drummond: Yes. The individual human mind. In a child's power to master the multiplication table, there is more sanctity than in all your shouted "amens" and "holy holies" and "hosannas." An idea is a greater monument than a cathedral. And the advance of man's knowledge is a greater miracle than all the sticks turned to snakes or the parting of the waters.
- Matthew Harrison Brady: I do not think about things I do not think about.
- Henry Drummond: Do you ever think about things that you DO think about?
- Henry Drummond: Progress has never been a bargain. You have to pay for it. Sometimes I think there's a man who sits behind a counter and says, "All right, you can have a telephone, but you lose privacy and the charm of distance. Madam, you may vote but at a price: you lose the right to retreat behind the powder puff or your petticoat. Mister, you may conquer the air, but the birds will lose their wonder and the clouds will smell of gasoline."
- Matthew Harrison Brady: Why is it, my old friend, that you've moved so far away from me?
- Henry Drummond: All motion is relative, Matt. Maybe it's you who've moved away by standing still.
- Henry Drummond: I don't swear just for the hell of it. Language is a poor enough means of communication. I think we should use all the words we've got. Besides, there are damn few words that anybody understands.
- [last lines]
- Henry Drummond: My God, don't you understand the meaning of what happened here today?
- E. K. Hornbeck: What happened here has no meaning...
- Henry Drummond: YOU have no meaning! You're like a ghost pointing an empty sleeve and smirking at everything people feel or want or struggle for! I pity you.
- E. K. Hornbeck: You pity me?
- Henry Drummond: Isn't there anything? What touches you, what warms you? Every man has a dream. What do you dream about? What... what do you need? You don't need anything, do you? People, love, an idea, just to cling to? You poor slob! You're all alone. When you go to your grave, there won't be anybody to pull the grass up over your head. Nobody to mourn you. Nobody to give a damn. You're all alone.
- E. K. Hornbeck: You're wrong, Henry. You'll be there. You're the type. Who else would defend my right to be lonely?
- E. K. Hornbeck: Evolution is a tricky question, which is hungrier, my stomach or my soul? Hot dog.
- Bible salesman: Are you an evolutionist? An infidel? A sinner?
- E. K. Hornbeck: The worst kind, I write for a newspaper.
- [to Henry]
- E. K. Hornbeck: Want a hot dog?
- Henry Drummond: No.
- Bible salesman: Oh then you sir, you must be a man of God.
- Henry Drummond: No no no, ulcers.
- Matthew Harrison Brady: Drummond and I have worked side by side in many battles for the common folk. Twice he campaigned for me when I ran for president.
- Henry Drummond: That's right.
- Matthew Harrison Brady: After all these years we find ourselves on the opposite side of an issue.
- Henry Drummond: Well, that's evolution for you.
- Henry Drummond: Is that the way of things? God tells Brady what is good; to be against Brady is to be against God!
- Matthew Harrison Brady: No! Every man is a free agent!
- Henry Drummond: Then what is Bertram Cates doing in the Hillsboro jail?
- [Drummond contemplates a radio microphone in the courtroom]
- Henry Drummond: Radio! God, this is going to break down a lot of walls.
- Radio Announcer: You're not supposed to say "God" on the radio!
- Henry Drummond: Why the hell not?
- Radio Announcer: You're not supposed to say "Hell", either.
- Henry Drummond: This is going to be a barren source of amusement!
- Henry Drummond: For I intend to show this court that what Bertram Cates spoke quietly one spring morning in the Hillsboro High School is not crime. It is incontrovertible as geometry to any enlightened community of minds.
- Prosecutor Tom Davenport: In this community, Colonel Drummond, and in this sovereign state, exactly the opposite is the case. The language of the law is clear, your Honor. We do not need experts to question the validity of a law that is already on the books.
- Henry Drummond: Well, what do you need? A gallows to hang him from?
- Prosecutor Tom Davenport: That remark is an insult to this entire community.
- Henry Drummond: And this community is an insult to the world.
- Henry Drummond: As long as the prerequisite for that shining paradise is ignorance, bigotry and hate, I say the hell with it.
- Matthew Harrison Brady: But your client is wrong. He is deluded. He has lost his way.
- Henry Drummond: It's a shame we don't all possess your positive knowledge of what is right and what is wrong, Mr. Brady.
- Henry Drummond: I know what Bert is going through. It's the loneliest feeling in the world. It's like walking down an empty street, listening to your own footsteps. But all you have to do is to knock on any door and say, "If you'll let me in, I'll live the way you want me to live, and I'll think the way you want me to think," and all the blinds will go up, and all the doors will open, and you'll never be lonely, ever again. Now, it's up to you, Cates. You just say the word, and we'll change the plea... That is, of course, if you honestly believe that the law is right and you're wrong.
- Henry Drummond: You know, Hornbeck, I'm getting damn sick of you.
- E. K. Hornbeck: Why?
- Henry Drummond: You never pushed a noun against a verb except to blow up something.
- E. K. Hornbeck: You know, that's a typical lawyer's trick - accusing the accuser.
- Henry Drummond: What am I accused of?
- E. K. Hornbeck: Contempt of conscience, sentimentality in the first degree.
- Henry Drummond: Suppose God whispered into a Bertram Cates' ear that an un-Brady thought could still be holy? Must men go to jail because they find themselves at odds with a self-appointed prophet?
- E. K. Hornbeck: There's only one man in the whole town who thinks, and he's in jail.
- Henry Drummond: That's why I'm here