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[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.
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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?
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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!
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E. K. Hornbeck: We're growing a strange crop of agnostics this year.
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E. K. Hornbeck: [about Brady] He's the only man I know who can strut sitting down.
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E. K. Hornbeck: Disillusionment is what little heroes are made of.
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E. K. Hornbeck: Mr. Brady, it is the duty of a newspaper to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
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E. K. Hornbeck: [to Drummond] Hello, Devil. Welcome to Hell.
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Matthew Harrison Brady: Remember the wisdom of Solomon in the book of Proverbs. "He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind."
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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.
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E. K. Hornbeck: He that sups with the devil must have a long spoon.
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Townswoman: You're the stranger, ain'tcha? Are you looking for a nice, clean place to stay?
E. K. Hornbeck: Madam, I had a nice clean place to stay... and I left it, to come here.
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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.
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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?
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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]
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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.
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E. K. Hornbeck: Which is hungrier my stomach or my soul? Hotdog!
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Henry Drummond: The Bible is a book. It's a good book, but it is not the only book.
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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.
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E. K. Hornbeck: I do hateful things for which people love me, and I do loveable things for which they hate me. I'm admired for my detestability. Now don't worry, little Eva. I may be rancid butter, but I'm on your side of the bread
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Henry Drummond: Ever been in love Hornbeck?
E. K. Hornbeck: Only with the sound of my own words, thank God.
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E. K. Hornbeck: Looks like you're going out in a blaze of glory counselor. You were pretty impressive for a while there today, Henry. "Your Honor, after a while you'll be setting man against man, creed against creed" etc, etc, ad nauseam unquote. AHH, Henry! why don't you wake up? Darwin was Wrong! Man's still an ape. His creed still a totem pole. When he first achieved the upright position he took a look at the stars... thought they were something to eat. When he couldn't reach them, he thought they were groceries belonging to a bigger creature... that's how Jehovah was born.
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E. K. Hornbeck: Looks like you're going out in a blaze of glory, Counselor. You were pretty impressive for a while there today, Henry. "Your Honor, after a while you'll be setting man against man, creed against creed, etc, etc, ad nauseam unquote." Ah, Henry, why don't you wake up? Darwin was wrong. Man's still an ape. His creed's still a totem pole. When he first achieved the upright position, he took a look at the stars, thought they were something to eat. When he couldn't reach them, he decided they were groceries belonging to a bigger creature; that's how Jehovah was born.
Henry Drummond: I wish I had your worm's-eye view of history. It would certainly make things a lot easier.
E. K. Hornbeck: Oh ho, no! Not for you. No, you'd still be spending your time trying to make sense out of what is laughingly referred to as the "human race." Why don't you take your blinders off? Don't you know the future's already obsolete? You think man still has a noble destiny. Well I tell you he's already started on his backward march to the salt and stupecy from which he came.
Henry Drummond: What about men like Bert Cates?
E. K. Hornbeck: Cates? A monkey who tried to fly. Cates climbed to the top of the totem pole, but then he jumped. And there was nobody there to catch him. Not even you.
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[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?
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[a crowd burns the teacher in effigy]
E. K. Hornbeck: Well, those are the boobs that make our laws. That's the democratic process.
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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!
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E. K. Hornbeck: [Cates rises as his girlfriend is called to testify] Sit down, Samson, you're about to get a haircut.
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Rachel Brown: I was always more afraid of you than of falling!
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Matthew Harrison Brady: I have been to their cities and I have seen the altars upon which they sacrifice the futures of their children to the gods of science. And what are their rewards? Confusion and self-destruction. New ways to kill each other in wars. I tell you gentlemen the way of science is the way of darkness.
-
Henry Drummond: As long as the prerequisite for that shining paradise is ignorance, bigotry and hate, I say the hell with it.
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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.
-
E. K. Hornbeck: [about Drummond] The Athiest who believes in God.
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Townspeople: [singing] We'll hang Bertram Cates to a sour apple tree, we'll hang Bertram Cates to a sour apple tree, we'll hang Bertram Cates to a sour apple tree. Our God is marching on! Glory Glory Hallelujah! Glory Glory Hallelujah! Glory Gory Hallelujah! His truth is marching on. We'll hang Henry Drummond to a sour apple tree, we'll hang Henry Drummond to a sour apple tree, we'll hang Henry Drummond to a sour apple tree, our God is marching on.
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Matthew Harrison Brady: [to Henry Drummond] They're looking for something that's more perfect than what they already have. Why do you want to take that away from them when it's all they have?
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Rachel Brown: [addressing the court about the Stebbeins boy] He went swimming in the river with the other boys, he got a cramp and drowned. At the funeral, my father said that Tommy's soul couldn't pass on to Heaven.
Bertram T. Cates: Tell them what your father really said, that Tommy's soul was damned and burning in hellfire! Religion is supposed to comfort people, not scare them to death!
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Rachel Brown: Don't you see? Bert didn't think it was fair that a little child couldn't go to Heaven.
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E. K. Hornbeck: You look like you need a drink.
Henry Drummond: What I need is a miracle.
E. K. Hornbeck: Miracle, eh? Here's a whole bag of them,
[tosses a Bible at Henry Drummond]
E. K. Hornbeck: Courtesy of Matthew Harrison Brady.
-
Howard: He said that men sort of evo-luted from Old World monkeys.
Matthew Harrison Brady: Do you hear that, friends? Old World monkeys! According to Bertram Cates, we don't even descend from good American monkeys!
[laughing]
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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
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E. K. Hornbeck: [to Dr. Britton's chimp] Grandpa! Welcome to Hillsboro sir, are you here to testify for the defense or the prosecution?
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Henry Drummond: Do you know that at the top of the world, the twilight lasts for six months?
Rachel Brown: Bert and I don't live on the top of the world, we live in Hillsboro.
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Bertram T. Cates: [to Rachel] Its your father's church or our house, you can't live in both.
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Sam: We all voted for you three times.
Matthew Harrison Brady: I trust it was in three separate elections! I just wish one thing, that you'd not given us quite so WARM a welcome.
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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."
-
E. K. Hornbeck: [watching the reverend spur the crowd with his sermon] Whatever happened to silent prayer?
-
Matthew Harrison Brady: Funny how two people can start off at the same point and... drift apart.
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Matthew Harrison Brady: There is only one great truth in the world!
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E. K. Hornbeck: [about Brady] How do you write an obituary about a man who's been dead for thirty years?
-
Rev. Jeremiah Brown: [preaching] Oh, Lord of the tempest and the thunder, strike down this sinner, as thou did thine enemies of old in the days of the Pharaohs! Let him know the terror of thy sword! Let his soul, for all eternity, writhe in anguish and damnation!
Rachel Brown: No! No, Pa! Don't pray to destroy Bert!
Rev. Jeremiah Brown: Lord! We ask this same curse for those who ask grace for this sinner! Though they be blood of my blood and flesh of my FLESH!
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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.
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Sarah Brady: Youth can be so pure. What do you know of good or evil? What do you understand of the sum of a man's life?
Rachel Brown: He betrayed me!
Sarah Brady: You betrayed yourself! You see my husband as a saint, and so he must be right in everything he says and does. And then you see him as a devil, and everything he says and does must be wrong. Well my husband's neither a saint nor a devil. He's just a human being, and he makes mistakes.
Rachel Brown: How can you defend him?
Sarah Brady: It's not he I'm defending! I'm defending the forty years I've lived with this man, and watched him carry the burdens of people like you! If he's been wrong, at least he stood for something! What do you stand for? Do you believe in Bertram Cates? I believe in my husband. What do you believe in?
-
Bertram T. Cates: Where do I finish? Dead with a paper medal on my chest? "Bert Cates, World's Chump: He Died Fighting." Well, let's face it, to him I'm a headline, to you I'm a cause?
Henry Drummond: And to yourself? All right, let's face it. Now you chose to get into this by yourself. You didn't get into it because of his headline or because of my cause or maybe even because of their kids! You got into it because of yourself, because of something you believed in, for yourself.
Bertram T. Cates: I didn't believe it would happen this way.
E. K. Hornbeck: It can get worse. Those people are in a lean and hungry mood.
Bertram T. Cates: They look at me as if I was a murderer.
Henry Drummond: In a way you are. You killed one of their fairy tale notions.
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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.
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Matthew Harrison Brady: I am more interested in the 'Rock of Ages' than I am in the age of rocks.
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Henry Drummond: The Gospel according to Brady! God speaks to Brady, and Brady tells the world! Brady, Brady, Brady, Almighty!
Matthew Harrison Brady: All of you know what I stand for - what I believe! I believe in the truth of the Book of Genesis! Exodus! Leviticus! Numbers! Deuteronomy! Joshua! Judges! Ruth! First Samuel! Second Samuel! First Kings! Second Kings! Isaiah! Jeremiah! Lamentations! Ezekiel!...
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Rachel Brown: Don't you see what's happening, Bert? They're using you as a weapon against your own people. What you think or believe isn't the point any more. You're helping something bad.
Henry Drummond: Go on now, young lady, it's not as simple as all that, good or bad, black or white, day or night. Do you know that at the top of the world, the twilight is six months long?
Rachel Brown: Bert and I don't live on the top of the world, we live in Hillsboro. And when the sun goes down, it's dark. And why do you have to come here to make it different?
Henry Drummond: I didn't come here to make Hillsboro different. I came here to defend his right to be different. And that's the point. How 'bout it boy?
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Bertram T. Cates: Rach, what goes on in this town is not necessarily the Christian religion every place else either.
-
E. K. Hornbeck: [to Bertram Cates as Rachel is called to the witness stand] Sit down, Samson, you're about to get a haircut.
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Matthew Harrison Brady: Is the counsel for the defense showing us the latest fashion in the great metropolitan city of Chicago?
Henry Drummond: Glad you asked me that. I brought these along special. Just so happens I bought these suspenders at Peabody's General Store in your home town Mr. Brady. Weeping Water, Nebraska.
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Rachel Brown: [to Bertram T Cates] What are you trying to prove anyway?
Bertram T. Cates: Rach, I'm not trying to prove anything. All I want to do is teach my students that man just wasn't planted here like a geranium in a flowerpot. That life comes from a long miracle; it didn't just take seven days.
Rachel Brown: But it's against the law. A school teacher's a public servant. He should do what the law and the school board want him to.
E. K. Hornbeck: [Pounding his hand on the chair like a gavel] Has the accused have anything to say in his own defense? If not, I sentence you to life as a public servant. A silent butler in the service of your school board. Waste baskets for ideas on sale in the outer lobby.
Rachel Brown: I don't see anything funny in this Mr. Hornbeck.
E. K. Hornbeck: Objection sustained. Neither do I.
Rachel Brown: Then why don't you just leave us alone? You newspaper people have stirred up enough trouble for Bert. What do you want anyway?
E. K. Hornbeck: I came to tell Boy Socrates here that the Baltimore Herald is opposed to Hemlock and will provide a lawyer.
Bertram T. Cates: Who?
E. K. Hornbeck: Who? I don't know yet but what's the difference? A new lawyer with old tricks, an old lawyer with new tricks. Wake up Copernicus! The law is still on the side of the lawmakers and everything revolves around their terra firma.
Bertram T. Cates: Then why bother, you and your newspaper?
E. K. Hornbeck: [smiling] Because I know that the sunrise is an optical illusion. My teacher told me so.
-
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.
-
E. K. Hornbeck: Hillsboro, heavenly Hillsboro - the buckle on the Bible Belt...
-
Henry Drummond: And I object to all this Col. Brady talk. I am not familiar with Mr. Brady's military record.
Judge: Well, he was made honorary colonel in our state militia the day he arrived in Hillsboro.
Henry Drummond: Well, the use of the title prejudices the case of my client. It calls up a picture of the prosecution a stride a white horse a blaze in the uniform of a military colonel and with all the forces of right and righteousness marshaled behind him.
Judge: Well, we certainly want to give you a fair hearing in this courtroom. We don't want anything prejudicial to your client. What do you suggest we do, counselor?
Henry Drummond: Break him. Make him a private. I have no serious objection to the honorary title of Private Brady.
-
Henry Drummond: Bert, whenever you see something bright, shining, perfect-seeming - all gold, with purple spots - look behind the paint! And if it's a lie, show it up for what it really is!
-
E. K. Hornbeck: Cynical? That's my fascination. I'm both poles and the equator with no temperate zone in between.
-
Howard: [observes a worm] What do you wanna be when you grow up?
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opening song: [singing] Give me that old time religion. / Give me that old time religion. / Give me that old time religion. / It's good enough for me. / Give me that old time religion. / Give me that old time religion. / Give me that old time religion. / It's good enough for me. / It was good for little David. / It was good for little David. / It was good for little David / and it's good enough for me. / Oh!, give me that old time religion. / Give me that old time religion. / Give me that old time religion. / It's good enough for me. / It was good for old Jonah. / It was good for old Jonah. / It was good for old Jonah / and it's good enough for me. / It was good for the Hebrew children. / It was good for the Hebrew children. / It was good for the Hebrew children / and it's good enough for me. / Give me that old time religion. / Give me that old time religion. / Give me that old time religion. / It's good enough for me.
-
[first lines]
Bertram T. Cates: [addressing his class as Mayor Jason Carter, Reverend Jeremiah Brown, Jessie Dunlap, and Deputy Sam enter the classroom to arrest him] Good morning visitors. For our science lesson for today, we will continue our discussion of Darwin's Theory of the descent of man. As I told you yesterday, Darwin's Theory tells us that man evolved from a lower order of animals: from the first wiggly protozoa here in the sea, to the ape, and finally to man. As some of you fellas out there probably gonna say that's why some of us act like monkeys.
[the class laughs]
Bertram T. Cates: But what Mr. Chatles Darwin was trying to tell us in his own way...
Sam - Deputy Arresting Cates: Bertram T. Cates.
Bertram T. Cates: Huh, come off it Sam, you've known me all my life.
Sam - Deputy Arresting Cates: Bert, you're charged with violation of Public Act 31428 - Volume 37, Statute Number 31428 of a state code - which makes it unlawful for any teacher of the public schools to teach any theory that denies the creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.
[the photographer takes a photo of the arrest]
Sam - Deputy Arresting Cates: Bertram Cates, I hereby place ya under arrest.
[the scene seamlessly splits to a brief montage of the case appearing as a front page story in various major newspapers: including in the Baltimore Herald with the heading 'Teacher Jailed In Test Of Evolution Law', the Indianapolis Journal as 'Are We Men Or Monkeys?', the Philadelphia Globe as 'Heavenly Hillsboro: A Return To Middle Ages', and the New York Chronicle as 'Monkey Trial In Hillsboro']
-
Matthew Harrison Brady: The Bible satisfies me. It is enough.
Henry Drummond: It frightens me to think of the state of learning in the world if everybody had your driving curiosity.
-
Matthew Harrison Brady: A fine biblical scholar, Bishop Usher, has determined for us the exact date and hour of the Creation. It occurred in the year 4004 B.C.
Henry Drummond: Well, that's Bishop Usher's opinion.
Matthew Harrison Brady: It's not an opinion. It's a literal fact -- which the good Bishop arrived at through careful computation of the ages of the prophets, as set down in the Old Testament. In fact, he determined that the Lord began the Creation on the 23rd of October, 4004 B.C. at, uh, 9:00 AM.
Henry Drummond: That Eastern Standard Time? Or Rocky Mountain Time? It wasn't Daylight Saving Time, was it? Because the Lord didn't make the sun until the fourth day.
-
Henry Drummond: [Brady is testifying about the first day of creation] That first day, what do you think, it was 24 hours long?
Matthew Harrison Brady: The Bible says it was a day.
Henry Drummond: Well, there was no sun out. How do you know how long it was?
Matthew Harrison Brady: The Bible says it was a day!
Henry Drummond: Well, was it a normal day, a literal day, 24 hour day?
Matthew Harrison Brady: I don't know.
Henry Drummond: What do you think?
Matthew Harrison Brady: I do not think about things that I do not think about.
Henry Drummond: Do you ever think about things that you do thing about? Isn't it possible that it could have been 25 hours? There's no way to measure it; no way to tell. Could it have been 25 hours?
Matthew Harrison Brady: It's possible.
Henry Drummond: Then you interpret that the first day as recorded in the Book of Genesis could've been a day of indeterminate length.
Matthew Harrison Brady: I mean to state that it is not necessarily a 24 hour day.
Henry Drummond: It could've been 30 hours, could've been a week, could've been a month, could've been a year, could've been a hundred years, or it could've been 10 million years!
-
E. K. Hornbeck: Hooligans of the world, unite! You've got nothing to burn but your intellectuals.
Inherit the Wind Quotes
Extended Reading
