Quotes from Paul Scofield movies and TV shows

Sir Thomas More: You threaten like a dockside bully.
Cromwell: How should I threaten?
Sir Thomas More: Like a minister of state. With justice.
Cromwell: Oh, justice is what you're threatened with.
Sir Thomas More: Then I am not threatened.

Sir Thomas More: They'll think that somewhere along your pedigree a bitch got over the wall.

Sir Thomas More: Why Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world... but for Wales?

Margaret More: Father, that man's bad.
Sir Thomas More: There's no law against that.
William Roper: There is: God's law.
Sir Thomas More: Then God can arrest him.

The Duke of Norfolk: Your life lies in your own hands, Thomas, as it always has.
Sir Thomas More: Is that so, My Lord? Then I'll keep a good grip on it.

Sir Thomas More: When a man takes an oath, he's holding his own self in his own hands like water, and if he opens his fingers then, he needn't hope to find himself again.

Cardinal Wolsey: You'd like that, wouldn't you? To govern the country with prayers?
Sir Thomas More: Yes, I should.
Cardinal Wolsey: I'd like to be there when you try.

The Duke of Norfolk: The nobility of England.
Sir Thomas More: The nobility of England, My Lord, would have snored through the Sermon on the Mount, but you'll labor like scholars over a bulldog's pedigree.

Sir Thomas More: I do none harm, I say none harm, I think none harm. And if this be not enough to keep a man alive, in good faith I long not to live.

The Duke of Norfolk: Why do you insult me with this lawyer's chatter?
Sir Thomas More: Because I am afraid.
The Duke of Norfolk: Man, you're ill. This isn't Spain, you know. This is England.

Richard Rich: I would be faithful.
Sir Thomas More: Richard, you couldn't answer for yourself even so far as tonight.

Mark Van Doren: Charlie, from what I understand, it's just a bunch of frauds showing off an erudition they really didn't have. All you have to do is.
Charles Van Doren: The problem is, Dad, is that it seems I was one of those frauds.

Mark Van Doren: Your name is mine.

Mark Van Doren: Why don't you just put it in the bank Charlie? That's what I've always done with my prize money.
Charles Van Doren: It's just, you don't understand dad, it's, there are all sorts of tax implications.
Mark Van Doren: You Think I can't understand the concept of taxes.
Charles Van Doren: At this level it's a bit more complicated.
Mark Van Doren: And at my level? I never thought of myself as having a level. What level might that be?

Student At Book Party: Professor Van Doren, I took your course at Columbia - "Hawthorne, Original Sin, and the American Experience." Well, as silly as it sounds, it changed my life.
Mark Van Doren: Was it the Hawthorne or the sin?

Mark Van Doren: Cheating on a quiz show? That's sort of like plagiarizing a comic strip.

Mark Van Doren: Sixty-four thousand dollars for a question, I hope they are asking you the meaning of life.

Mark Van Doren: What these books have conclusively proven is that the diffence between men and women is exactly 38 pages.
Man 1: Can I quote you, Mark?
Mark Van Doren: Not before I quote me.
Dorothy Van Doren: His own quotes are his greatest pleasure.
Man 2: Did you hear the market dropped 30 points today. There's a rumor Eisenhower died.
Dorothy Van Doren: How could they tell?
Mark Van Doren: Oh, please. Don't get Dorothy started on politics. There'll be a raid.

Charles Van Doren: Dad, I can't simply just tell them the truth.
Mark Van Doren: Can't tell them the truth? Why on earth not?
Charles Van Doren: Because it's complicated.
Mark Van Doren: Complicated?