Ten Movie Quotes and What They Mean to Me

1) "Like Constantinople or Rome before it the city has become a breeding ground for suffering and injustice. It is beyond saving and must be allowed to die. This is the most important function of the League of Shadows. It is one we've performed for centuries. Gotham... must be destroyed". -Ras al-Ghul, played by Ken Watanabe in Batman Begins.

This quote is remarkable to me because it displays the full horror of justice untempered with mercy. The mysterious vigilante Ras al-Ghul makes this heartless statement as part of a challenge to Bruce Wayne, who has just finished his rigorous training in the skills he will use later to become Batman. Al-Ghul has ordered Bruce to kill a criminal that Al-Ghul's own men have snatched and imprisoned. Bruce refuses because of his own sense of compassion. Bruce, unlike al-Ghul, has a keen sense of balance between justice and mercy, one which enables him to assume the mantle of Batman.

2) "You can lie to yourself and your minions / You can claim that you haven't a qualm / But you never can run from / Nor hide what you've done from the eyes / The very eyes of Notre Dame!" -the Archdeacon, played by David Ogden Stiers in Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

The Archdeacon sings these compelling lines in the midst of a confrontation between himself and the tyrannical Judge Claude Frollo. The judge has just slain an innocent Gypsy mother who had been running from him in an attempt to protect her child, the infant hunchback Quasimodo. Frollo picks up the child, gasps at its ugliness, and then decides to throw it down the nearest well, as it is not a baby but "a monster!" The Archdeacon sees him just in time and orders him to stop. Frollo defends himself by claiming that his conscience is clear, and the Archdeacon challenges his claim with the quoted lines. His powerful song points out that, in reality, Frollo is deluding himself; his unmerciful actions are not sanctioned by conscience, nor morality, and he will inevitably pay the price for his deeds. This taught me that people should not be judged based on their appearance, but rather, they should be shown mercy.