Laurence Fishburne credited as playing...
Morpheus
- Morpheus: This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.
- Morpheus: Neo, sooner or later you're going to realize just as I did that there's a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.
- Morpheus: What is real? How do you define 'real'? If you're talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then 'real' is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.
- Morpheus: I imagine that right now, you're feeling a bit like Alice. Tumbling down the rabbit hole? Hmm?
- Neo: You could say that.
- Morpheus: I see it in your eyes. You have the look of a man who accepts what he sees because he is expecting to wake up. Ironically, that's not far from the truth. Do you believe in fate, Neo?
- Neo: No.
- Morpheus: Why not?
- Neo: Because I don't like the idea that I'm not in control of my life.
- Morpheus: I know *exactly* what you mean. Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I'm talking about?
- Neo: The Matrix.
- Morpheus: Do you want to know what it is?
- Neo: Yes.
- Morpheus: The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work... when you go to church... when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
- Neo: What truth?
- Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your mind.
- Morpheus: Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?
- Morpheus: What are you waiting for? You're faster than this. Don't think you are, know you are. Come on. Stop trying to hit me and hit me.
- Morpheus: I'm trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You're the one that has to walk through it.
- Morpheus: The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.
- [Neo's eyes suddenly wander towards a woman in a red dress]
- Morpheus: Were you listening to me, Neo? Or were you looking at the woman in the red dress?
- Neo: I was...
- Morpheus: [gestures with one hand] Look again.
- [the woman in the red dress is now Agent Smith, pointing a gun at Neo's head; Neo ducks]
- Morpheus: Freeze it.
- [Everybody and everything besides Neo and Morpheus freezes in time]
- Neo: This... this isn't the Matrix?
- Morpheus: No. It is another training program designed to teach you one thing: if you are not one of us, you are one of them.
- Morpheus: We've survived by hiding from them, by running from them. But they are the gatekeepers. They are guarding all the doors, they are holding all the keys. Which means that sooner or later, someone is going to have to fight them.
- Neo: Someone?
- Morpheus: I've seen an agent punch through a concrete wall; men have emptied entire clips at them and hit nothing but air; yet, their strength, and their speed, are still based in a world that is built on rules. Because of that, they will never be as strong, or as fast, as *you* can be.
- [Neo sees a black cat walk by them, and then a similar black cat walk by them just like the first one]
- Neo: Whoa. Déjà vu.
- [Everyone freezes right in their tracks]
- Trinity: What did you just say?
- Neo: Nothing. Just had a little déjà vu.
- Trinity: What did you see?
- Cypher: What happened?
- Neo: A black cat went past us, and then another that looked just like it.
- Trinity: How much like it? Was it the same cat?
- Neo: It might have been. I'm not sure.
- Morpheus: Switch! Apoc!
- Neo: What is it?
- Trinity: A déjà vu is usually a glitch in the Matrix. It happens when they change something.
- Morpheus: [to Neo who is choosing the red pill] Remember... all I'm offering is the truth. Nothing more.