Memorable quotes for
Becket (1964) More at IMDbPro »

Thomas a Becket: God rest his soul.
King Henry II: He will, He will. He'll be much more use to God than he ever was to me.

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Thomas a Becket: Honor is a private matter within; it's an idea, and every man has his own version of it.
King Henry II: How gracefully you tell your king to mind his own business.

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Empress Matilda: Oh, if I were a man!
King Henry II: Thank God, madam, He gave you breasts! An asset from which I derived not the slightest benefit.

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King Henry II: Am I the strongest or am I not?
Thomas a Becket: You are today, but one must never drive one's enemy to despair; it makes him strong. Gentleness is better politics, it saps virility. A good occupational force must never crush. It must corrupt.

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King Henry II: Don't be nervous, Bishop. I'm not asking for absolution. I've something far worse than a sin on my conscience: a mistake.

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King Henry II: Let us drink, gentlemen. Let us drink, till we roll under the table in vomit and oblivion.

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King Henry II: Do you know how much trouble I went through to make you a noble?
Thomas a Becket: Yes, as I recall, you lifted your finger, pointed at me and said, "Thomas Becket, you are noble."

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Thomas a Becket: England is a ship. The king is captain of the ship.
King Henry II: That's neat. I like that.

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King Henry II: Your body, madam, was a desert that duty forced me to wander in alone. But you have never been a wife to me!

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King Henry II: He's read books, you know, it's amazing. He's drunk and wenched his way through London but he's thinking all the time.

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King Henry II: So what in most people is morality, in you it's just an exercise in... what's the word?
Thomas a Becket: Aesthetics.
King Henry II: Yes, that's the word. Always "aesthetics."

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King Henry II: There. That's the Great Seal of England. Don't lose it; without the seal, there's no more England, and we'll all have to pack up and go back to Normandy.

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King Henry II: I'm suddenly very intelligent. It probably comes from making love to that French girl last night.

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King Henry II: Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?

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King Henry II: [laughing in both amusement and anger] It's funny! It's too funny! Becket is the only intelligent man in my kingdom, and he's against me!

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Baron: Becket! You are a liar. You are a traitor!
[draws his sword on Becket]
Thomas a Becket: Sheathe your sword, Morville, before you impale your soul upon it!

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King Henry II: Are you mad? You're Chancellor of England; you're mine!
Thomas a Becket: I am also the Archbishop, and you have introduced me to deeper obligations.

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Thomas a Becket: Nobility lies in the man, my prince, not in the towel.

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Thomas a Becket: Tonight you can do me the honor of christening my forks.
King Henry II: Forks?
Thomas a Becket: Yes, from Florence. New little invention. It's for pronging meat and carrying it to the mouth. It saves you dirtying your fingers.
King Henry II: But then you dirty the fork.
Thomas a Becket: Yes, but it's washable.
King Henry II: So are your fingers. I don't see the point.

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King Henry II: Here's my royal foot up your royal buttocks!

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Empress Matilda: You have an obsession about him that is unhealthy and unnatural!

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King Henry II: [isolating one of his brawling sons from the rest] Which one are you?
Prince Henry: Henry the Third.
King Henry II: NOT YET, SIR!

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Thomas a Becket: Here I am, Lord, adorned for Your festivities.

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Thomas a Becket: Lord Gilbert, Baron of England by the grace of his majesty, King Henry II, seized upon the person of a priest of the Holy Church and unlawfully did hold him in custody. Furthermore, in the presence of Lord Gilbert, and by his command, his men seized upon this priest when he tried to escape and put him to death. This is the sin of murder and sacrilege. In that Lord Gilbert has rendered no act of contrition or repentance, and is at the moment, at liberty in the land, we do, here and now, separate him from the precious body and blood of Christ, and from the society of all Christians. We exclude him from our Holy Mother Church and all her sacraments, in heaven, or on Earth. We declare him excommunicate and anathema. We cast him into the outer darkness. We judge him damned with the devil and his fallen angels and all the reprobate, to eternal fire and everlasting pain!
[slams candle to the ground]
Monks: [chanting] So be it.

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Brother John: I don't mind if I am just a grain of sand in a machine. Because I know by putting more and more grains of sand in a machine, one day it'll come grinding to a stop.
Thomas a Becket: And on that day - what then?
Brother John: Well, we'll have a fine, new, well-oiled machine in the place of the old one. And this time we'll put the Normans into it instead. That's what justice means, doesn't it?

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King Henry II: Do you ever think?
Baron: Never, sire! A gentleman has better things to do!
[Henry and the four barons giggle drunkenly]

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Thomas a Becket: We must manage the church. One can always come to a sensible little arrangement with God.
King Henry II: Becket, you are a monster.
Thomas a Becket: You flatter me, My Lord.

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Thomas a Becket: Yes, we have soldiers disguised in the crowd to encourage enthusiasm.
King Henry II: Why must you destroy all my illusions?
Thomas a Becket: Because you should have none, My Prince.

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King Louis VII of France: The King of England and his Ambassadors can drown themselves in what they are impertinent enough to call their English channel.

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Thomas a Becket: We are both aware of the delicacy of my position. Let us trust that God will find a solution for it.

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Brother John: You betrayed your Saxon race, now you betray God.
Thomas a Becket: Perhaps you will succeed in teaching me humility, it's a virtue I've never really mastered.

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King Henry II: The die is cast, Thomas, make the most of it. And if I know you, I'm sure you will.

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King Louis VII of France: My dear man, crowned heads are free to play a little game of courtesy, but nations owe one another none.

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Thomas a Becket: Oh Lord, how heavy thy honor is to bear.

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