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.
E. K. Hornbeck: 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.


--Spencer Tracy (as Henry Drummond) in Inherit the Wind

Mike Cutler: [to Richard Sumner] I supposed I should have called first?
Richard Sumner: Yes, do that next time.


--Spencer Tracy (as Richard Sumner) in Desk Set

Policeman: Come on.
Tommy Connors: Hey wait a minute. Wait a minute. What about my clothes?
Policeman: You said you didn't want any uniform and the warden said it would be alright.


--Spencer Tracy (as Tommy Connors) in 20,000 Years in Sing Sing

Policeman: Hey you, come on out.
Tommy Connors: If you're coming in to give me the works, you'll have to come in and drag me out.
Policeman: Oh, no, no, no. No more of that. You've got a big pull around here. The warden said you don't have to wear a uniform.
Tommy Connors: Well, certainly. Ha, okay let's go boys.


--Spencer Tracy (as Tommy Connors) in 20,000 Years in Sing Sing

Second Train Conductor: What's all the excitement? What happened?
John J. Macreedy: A shooting.
Second Train Conductor: Thought it was something. First time the streamliner's stopped here in four years.
John J. Macreedy: Second time.


--Spencer Tracy (as John J. Macreedy) in Bad Day at Black Rock

[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.


--Spencer Tracy (as Henry Drummond) in Inherit the Wind

[first lines]
Narrator: [as the camera pans over the Rocky Mountains] This land has a name today, and is marked on maps. But, the names and the marks and the maps all had to be won, won from nature and from primitive man.


--Spencer Tracy (as Narrator) in How the West Was Won

[Sumner answers the phone while the girls are at a Christmas party]
Richard Sumner: Hello? Santa Claus's reindeer? Of course I can... let's see, there's Dopey, Grouchy, Sneezy, Sleepy, Happy, Bashful, Rudolph and Blitzen! You're welcome!


--Spencer Tracy (as Richard Sumner) in Desk Set

Kip Lurie: Did I hear someone say "sing it again"?
Adam Bonner: No!


--Spencer Tracy (as Adam Bonner) in Adam's Rib

Matt Drayton: Now Mr. Prentice, clearly a most reasonable man, says he has no wish to offend me but wants to know if I'm some kind of a *nut*. And Mrs. Prentice says that like her husband I'm a burned-out old shell of a man who cannot even remember what it's like to love a woman the way her son loves my daughter. And strange as it seems, that's the first statement made to me all day with which I am prepared to take issue... cause I think you're wrong, you're as wrong as you can be. I admit that I hadn't considered it, hadn't even thought about it, but I know exactly how he feels about her and there is nothing, absolutely nothing that you son feels for my daughter that I didn't feel for Christina. Old- yes. Burned-out- certainly, but I can tell you the memories are still there- clear, intact, indestructible, and they'll be there if I live to be 110. Where John made his mistake I think was in attaching so much importance to what her mother and I might think... because in the final analysis it doesn't matter a damn what we think. The only thing that matters is what they feel, and how much they feel, for each other. And if it's half of what we felt- that's everything. As for you two and the problems you're going to have, they seem almost unimaginable, but you'll have no problem with me, and I think when Christina and I and your mother have some time to work on him you'll have no problem with your father, John. But you do know, I'm sure you know, what you're up against. There'll be 100 million people right here in this country who will be shocked and offended and appalled and the two of you will just have to ride that out, maybe every day for the rest of your lives. You could try to ignore those people, or you could feel sorry for them and for their prejudice and their bigotry and their blind hatred and stupid fears, but where necessary you'll just have to cling tight to each other and say "screw all those people"! Anybody could make a case, a hell of a good case, against your getting married. The arguments are so obvious that nobody has to make them. But you're two wonderful people who happened to fall in love and happened to have a pigmentation problem, and I think that now, no matter what kind of a case some bastard could make against your getting married, there would be only one thing worse, and that would be if - knowing what you two are and knowing what you two have and knowing what you two feel- you didn't get married. Well, Tillie, when the hell are we gonna get some dinner?


--Spencer Tracy (as Matt Drayton) in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner