Ben-Hur Quotes

You may conquer the land. You may slaughter the people. But that is not the end. We will rise again.[to Messala]

You can break a man’s skull, you can arrest him, you can throw him into a dungeon. But how do you control what’s up here? How do you fight an idea?

You ask how to fight an idea. Well, I’ll tell you how. With another idea.[to Sextus]

Whoever the gods are, they take small interest in an old man’s hopes.

Where there is greatness, great government or power, even great feeling or compassion, error also is great. We progress and mature by fault.

The voice, for instance, of Arrius waiting for you in Rome. He would tell you, if I may speak in his place, not to crucify yourself on a shadow such as old resentment or impossible loyalties. Perfect freedom has no existence. A grown man knows the world he lives in. And for the present, the world is Rome.[to Judah]

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

One God, that I can understand. But one wife, that is not civilized. It is not generous.

It’s an insane world. But in it there is one sanity: The loyalty of old friends.[to Judah]

It’s a strange, stubborn faith you keep, to believe that existence has a purpose. A sane man would have learned to lose it long before this.

Is there anything so sad as unrequited love?

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