-Or 77 Lies that Tell Truths…In chronological order, from oldest to newest, they are:
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Dorothy: “How do you talk if you don’t have a brain?”
Scarecrow: “Well, some people without brains do an awful lot of talking don’t they?”
Wizard of Oz: “You, my friend, are a victim of disorganized thinking. You are under the unfortunate impression that just because you run away you have no courage; you’re confusing courage with wisdom.”
The Great Dictator (1940)
A Jewish Barber: “…Don’t give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you, enslave you; who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel! Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men – machine men with machine minds and machine hearts. You are not machines, you are not cattle, you are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate! Only the unloved hate”
Black Narcissus (1947)
Sister Clodagh: “We all need discipline. You said yourself they’re like children. Without discipline we should all behave like children.”
Mr. Dean: “Oh. Don’t you like children, Sister?”
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
Stanley Kowalski: “You know what luck is? Luck is believing you’re lucky, that’s all… To hold a front position in this rat-race, you’ve got to believe you are lucky.”
Spartacus (1960)
Spartacus: “And maybe there’s no peace in this world, for us or for anyone else, I don’t know. But I do know that, as long as we live, we must remain true to ourselves.”
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Atticus Finch: “If you just learn a single trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Jackson Bentley: “You answered without saying anything. That’s politics.”
The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
Raymond Shaw: “My dear girl, have you ever noticed that the human race is divided into two distinct and irreconcilable groups: those that walk into rooms and automatically turn television sets on, and those that walk into rooms and automatically turn them off. The trouble is that they end up marrying each other.”
Mrs. Iselin: “It has been decided that you will be dressed as a priest, to help you get away in the pandemonium afterwards. Chunjin will give you a two-piece Soviet Army sniper’s rifle that fits nicely into a special bag. There’s a spotlight booth that won’t be in use. It’s up under the roof on the Eighth Avenue side of the Garden. You will have absolutely clear, protected shooting. You are to shoot the presidential nominee through the head. And Johnny will rise gallantly to his feet and lift Ben Arthur’s body in his arms, stand in front of the microphones and begin to speak.
The speech is short. But it’s the most rousing speech I’ve ever read. It’s been worked on, here and in Russia, on and off, for over eight years. I shall force someone to take the body away from him and Johnny will really hit those microphones and those cameras with blood all over him, fighting off anyone who tries to help him, defending America even if it means his own death, rallying a nation of television viewers to hysteria, to sweep us up into the White House with powers that will make martial law seem like anarchy! Now, this is very important. I want the nominee to be dead two minutes after he begins his acceptance speech – depending on his reading time under pressure. You are to hit him right at the point that he finishes the phrase, “Nor would I ask of any fellow American in defense of his freedom that which I would not gladly give myself – my life before my liberty.” Is that absolutely clear?”
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
President Merkin Muffley: “But this is absolute madness, Ambassador! Why should you *build* such a thing?”
Ambassador de Sadesky: “There were those of us who fought against it, but in the end we could not keep up with the expense involved in the arms race, the space race, and the peace race. At the same time our people grumbled for more nylons and washing machines. Our doomsday scheme cost us just a small fraction of what we had been spending on defence in a single year. The deciding factor was when we learned that your country was working along similar lines, and we were afraid of a doomsday gap.”
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967)
Dr. John Prentice [to his father]: “You’ve said what you had to say. You listen to me. You say you don’t want to tell me how to live my life? So what do you think you’ve been doing? You tell me what rights I’ve got or haven’t got, and what I owe to you for what you’ve done for me. Let me tell you something. I owe you nothing! If you carried that bag a million miles, you did what you were supposed to do because you brought me into this world, and from that day you owed me everything you could ever do for me, like I will owe my son if I ever have another. But you don’t own me! You can’t tell me when or where I’m out of line, or try to get me to live my life according to your rules.
You don’t even know what I am, Dad. You don’t know who I am. You don’t know how I feel, what I think. And if I tried to explain it the rest of your life, you will never understand. You are 30 years older than I am. You and your whole lousy generation believes the way it was for you is the way it’s got to be. And not until your whole generation has lain down and died will the deadweight of you be off our backs! You understand? You’ve got to get off my back! Dad. Dad. You’re my father. I’m your son. I love you. I always have and I always will. But you think of yourself as a colored man. I think of myself as a man.”
