Capt. Hardenberg: The German army is invincible because it is an army that obeys orders. Any order. No matter how distasteful. It has no sentimentalists, no moralists, no individualists. You will have no future in it if you don't understand that. You may have no future at all if you oppose it. I trouble to tell you this because you have a fine record. You will be a creative soldier, once you get all this "thinking" knocked out of you.


--Maximilian Schell (as Capt. Hardenberg) in The Young Lions

Stanislaus Pilgrin: [voicing his thoughts] The simple closing of a door has brought me to the guillotine.


--Maximilian Schell (as ) in Return from the Ashes

Stanislaus Pilgrin: If there is no God, no devil, no heaven, no hell, and no immortality, then anything is permissible.


--Maximilian Schell (as ) in Return from the Ashes

Mother: They have thrown you out. They don't want you back because you are an idiot. You have been nothing but trouble since the day you got there - since the day you were born! What have you done this time? Tell me. Answer!
Mother: I broke a statue.
Mother: For breaking a little statue they throw you out like a dog?
Giuseppe: It wasn't little, it was big.


--Maximilian Schell (as Giuseppe) in The Reluctant Saint

Bishop: It always troubled me, the Trinity. You know, Giuseppe, I could never really understand it. Does it trouble you?
Bishop: No. There are three persons in one God. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Three in one.
Bishop: Yes, but that's for a child. But a small comfort to a Bishop. You see, I'm a peasant, Giuseppe, just like you. A practical man, so I understand only what I feel, and what I see.
Giuseppe: Look, look. One blanket and one, two, three folds. Three folds in one blanket - three persons in one God, like the Trinity.


--Maximilian Schell (as Giuseppe) in The Reluctant Saint

Charles Dobbs: How long are you staying?
Dieter Frey: A few days. Business kunches, business dinners... I even have a business breakfast. Who knows? I might actually do some business too.


--Maximilian Schell (as ) in The Deadly Affair