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?

Henry Drummond: The Bible is a book. It's a good book, but it is not the only book.

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!...

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.

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]

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!

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.

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?

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.

Matthew Harrison Brady: Funny how two people can start off at the same point and... drift apart.