Henry Drummond: As long as the prerequisite for that shining paradise is ignorance, bigotry and hate, I say the hell with it.

Henry Drummond: But all you have to do is knock on any door and say, "If you 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'll go up and all the windows will open, and you'll never be lonely, ever again. If that's the case, I'll change the plea - that is, if you know the law's right and you're wrong.

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.

Henry Drummond: Ever been in love Hornbeck?
E. K. Hornbeck: Only with the sound of my own words, thank God.

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: Hornbeck, I'm getting tired of you. You never push a noun against a verb without trying to blow up something.

Henry Drummond: I didn't come here to make this town different. I came here to defend this man's right to be different.

Henry Drummond: I don't swear just for the hell of it. Language is a poor enough means of communication. I think we should all the words we've got. Besides, there are damn few words that anybody understands.

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?

Henry Drummond: Progress has never been a bargain. You have to pay for it.
Henry Drummond: 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.
Henry Drummond: Madam, you may vote but at a price. You lose the right to retreat behind the powder puff or your petticoat.
Henry Drummond: Mister, you may conquer the air but the birds will lose their wonder and the clouds will smell of gasoline."