Quotes from the Movie Ben-Hur

You may conquer the land, you may slaughter the people. That is not the end. We will rise again.

Judah Ben-Hur

Rome is an affront to God. Rome is strangling my people and my country and the whole earth, but not forever. I tell you, the day Rome falls, there will be a shout of freedom such as the world has never heard before.

Judah Ben-Hur

[to Messala] May God grant me vengeance. I pray that you live till I return.

Judah Ben-Hur

Be wise, Judah. It's a Roman world. If you want to live in it, you must become part of it...I tell you, Judah, it's no accident that one small village on the Tiber was chosen to rule the world...It wasn't just our legions...No, it was fate that chose us to civilize the world - and we have. Our roads and our ships connect every corner of the earth, Roman law, architecture, literature and the glory of the human race.

Messala

It's an insane world, but in it there's one sanity, the loyalty of old friends. Judah, we must believe in one another.

Messala

[to Judah] I wanted your help. Now you have given it to me. By making this example of you, I discourage treason. By condemning, without hesitation, an old friend, I shall be feared.

Messala

[to Judah] You have the spirit to fight back but the good sense to control it. Your eyes are full of hate, Forty-One. That's good. Hate keeps a man alive. It gives him strength.

Quintus Arrius

[to Judah] In his eagerness to save you, your God has also saved the Roman fleet.

Quintus Arrius

One wife? One god, that I can understand - but one wife! That is not civilized. It is not generous.

Sheik Ilderim

[to Judah] The Star of David, will shine out for your people and my people together and blind the eyes of Rome.

Sheik Ilderim

Do not pity me, Master Judah. In fact, I'm twice the man I was. There's Mallet, my other half. We met in the dungeons at the citadel. We were released on the same day, Mallet without a tongue and I without life in my legs. Since then, I have been his tongue and he has been my legs. Together, we make a considerable man.

Simonides

There's also a wild man in the desert named John the Baptist and a young carpenter's son who goes around doing magic tricks, miracles they call them...This man is different. He teaches that God is near, in every man. It's actually quite profound, some of it.

Sextus

I've seen too much what hate can do. My father is burned up with it. But I've heard of a young rabbi who says that forgiveness is greater and love more powerful than hatred. I believe it.

Esther

Where there is greatness, great government or power, even great feeling or compassion, error also is great.

Pontius Pilate

You can break a man's skull. You can arrest him. You can throw him into a dungeon. But how do you fight an idea?

Sextus