Gladiator quotes

View Quote Maximus: You ask me what I want. I too want to stand before the Emperor as you did.
Proximo: Then listen to me. Learn from me. I wasn't the best because I killed quickly. I was the best because the crowd loved me. Win the crowd. And you will win your freedom.
Maximus: I will win the crowd. I will give them something they have never seen before.

View Quote Gracchus: I think he [Commodus] knows what Rome is. Rome is the mob. Conjure magic for them and they'll be distracted. Take away their freedom and still they'll roar. The beating heart of Rome is not the marble of the Senate, it's the sand of the Colosseum. He'll bring them death...and they will love him for it.
Lucilla: Is Rome worth one good man's life? We believed it once, make us believe it again. He was a soldier of Rome. Honor him.
Gracchus: I do not pretend to be a man of the people. But I do try to be a man for the people.
Lucilla: Today I saw a slave become more powerful than the Emperor of Rome.
We who are about to die salute you!

View Quote [Proximo explains the story of his gladiator career]
Proximo: He [Marcus Aurelius] touched me on the shoulder, I was free.
Maximus: [laughs wildly] You knew Marcus Aurelius –
Proximo: I didn't say I knew him, I said he touched me on the shoulder once!

View Quote Now we are free. ... I will see you again ... but not yet ... not yet.

View Quote Commodus: The general who became a slave. The slave who became a gladiator. The gladiator who defied an emperor. Striking story! But now, the people want to know how the story ends. Only a famous death will do. And what could be more glorious than to challenge the Emperor himself in the great arena?
Maximus: You would fight me?
Commodus: Why not? Do you think I am afraid?
Maximus: I think you've been afraid all your life.
Commodus: Unlike Maximus the invincible, who knows no fear?
Maximus: I knew a man who once said: "Death smiles at us all. All a man can do is smile back."
Commodus: I wonder, did your friend smile at his own death?
Maximus: You must know. He was your father.
Commodus: You loved my father, I know. But so did I. That makes us brothers, doesn't it? Smile for me now, brother! [Commodus stabs him in the back]

View Quote Fratres! Three weeks from now, I will be harvesting my crops. Imagine where you will be, and it will be so. Hold the line. Stay with me. If you find yourself alone, riding in green fields with the sun on your face, do not be troubled; for you are in Elysium, and you're already dead! [his men burst out laughing] Brothers, what we do in life, echoes in eternity.

View Quote [After Maximus' team defeats the Scipio Africanus legionnaires]
Commodus: My history's a little bit hazy Cassius, but didn't the barbarians lose the Battle of Carthage?
Cassius: Yes, sire. I'm sorry, sire.
Commodus: Who is that man? [refers to Maximus]
Cassius: They call him "The Spaniard", sire.
Commodus: I think I'll meet him.

View Quote Quintus: Maximus? Maximus?
Maximus: Quintus, free my men. Senator Gracchus is to be reinstated. There was a dream, that was Rome. It shall be realized. These are the wishes of Marcus Aurelius.

View Quote Whatever comes out of these gates, we've got a better chance of survival if we work together. Do you understand? If we stay together, we survive.

View Quote Proximo: What do you want? Hmm? Girl? Boy?
Maximus: You sent for me?
Proximo: Yes, I did. You're good, Spaniard, but not that good. You could be magnificent.
Maximus: I'm required to kill, so I kill. That is enough.
Proximo: That's enough for the provinces, but not for Rome.

View Quote Maximus: Do you find it difficult to do your duty?
Cicero: Sometimes I do what I want to do. The rest of the time, I do what I have to.

View Quote Shadows and dust. [last lines before he is murdered by Commodus's guards]

View Quote Maximus: What will you have me do, Caesar?
Marcus: I want you to become the protector of Rome after I die. I will empower you, to one end alone, to give power back to the people of Rome and end the corruption that has crippled it. Pause Will you accept this great honor that I have offered you?
Maximus: With all my heart, no.
Marcus: Maximus, that is why it must be you.

View Quote They say your son squealed like a girl, as they nailed him to the cross. And your wife moaned like a whore when they ravaged her. Again. And again. And again.

View Quote I am Proximo. I will be closer to you in these next few days, which will be the last days of your miserable lives, than that bitch of a mother who first brought you screaming into this world. I did not pay good money for your company, I paid it so I could profit from your deaths. And just as your mother was there at your beginning, so I shall be there at your end. And when you die, and die you shall, your transition will be to the sound of [he claps his hands]. Gladiators, I salute you.