Quotes from Twelve Angry Men

Reginald Rose ·  79 pages

Rating: (18.9K votes)


“It takes a great deal of courage to stand alone even if you believe in something very strongly.”
― Reginald Rose, quote from Twelve Angry Men


“Facts may be colored by the personalities of the people who present them.”
― Reginald Rose, quote from Twelve Angry Men


“It's very hard to keep personal prejudice out of a thing like this. And no matter where you run into it, prejudice obscures the truth.”
― Reginald Rose, quote from Twelve Angry Men


“Nine of us now seem to feel that the defendant is innocent, but we're just gambling on probabilities. We may be wrong. We may be trying to return a guilty man to the community. No one can really know. But we have a reasonable doubt, and this is a safeguard that has enormous value in our system. No jury can declare a man guilty unless it's sure. We nine can't understand how you three are still so sure. Maybe you can tell us.”
― Reginald Rose, quote from Twelve Angry Men


“Look, this boy's been kicked around all his life. You know-living in a slum, his mother dead since he was nine. He spent a year and a half in an orphanage while his father served a jail term for forgery. That's not a very good head start. He's had a pretty terrible sixteen years. I think maybe we owe him a few words. That's all.”
― Reginald Rose, quote from Twelve Angry Men



“TEN [exploding]. Bright! He's a common ignorant slob. He don't even speak good English!
ELEVEN [slowly]. He doesn't even speak good English.”
― Reginald Rose, quote from Twelve Angry Men


“Well, it's not easy to stand alone against the ridicule of others. He gambled for support and I gave it to him.”
― Reginald Rose, quote from Twelve Angry Men


“This is a quiet, frightened, insignificant old man who has been nothing all his life, who has never had recognition, his name in the newspapers. Nobody knows him, nobody quotes him, nobody seeks his advice after seventy-five years. That's a very sad thing, to be nothing. A man like this needs to be recognized, to be listened to, to be quoted just once. This is very important. It would be so hard for him to recede into the background ...”
― Reginald Rose, quote from Twelve Angry Men


About the author

Reginald Rose
Born place: in New York, New York, The United States
Born date December 10, 1920
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Popular quotes

“Why bother trying? What was the point? So I could go to some suck-ass college, get a diploma, march out into a job that I hated, marry a pretty girl who would want to divorce me, but then she wouldn't because we'd have kids, so instead she'd be the angry woman at the other end of the kitchen table, and the kids would grow up watching this, until one day I'd look at my son and he'd look just like that face in the bathroom mirror?
If that was life, then it was twisted.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, quote from Twisted


“I suck at this spillin’ my guts stuff.

I always have. You know that probably better’n anyone.”

“Yeah, well, it’s a lousy excuse. It always has been.”

Trevor slowly lifted his head and gave Edgard an incredulous look. “How is that smartass answer supposed to help me?”

“Oh, so now you want my help?”

“Well yeah, since it’s obvious I f**ked up and it’s obvious you think you know how to fix it.”

“Fine.” Edgard pointed to the cell phone clipped on the dash. “Call her. Say, ‘Baby, I’m sorry I was an ass**le. I love you’, but for Christsake don’t qualify it.”

“Qualify it, meanin’ what?”

“Don’t tack on, ‘I was an ass**le because I’m under stress’, just apologize. Period.”

They stared at each other.

“That’s it?”

“Sometimes the smallest gestures have the biggest impact.”

“Can’t be that easy,” Trevor muttered, snatching the phone. He faced out the driver’s side window but didn’t lower his voice.”
― Lorelei James, quote from Cowgirl Up and Ride


“but he had a great respect for money, and much overrated its value as a means of doing even what he called good: religious people generally do -- with a most unchristian dulness. We are not told that the Master made the smallest use of money for his end. When he paid the temple-rate, he did it to avoid giving offence; and he defended the woman who divinely wasted it.”
― George MacDonald, quote from Sir Gibbie


“She had heard it was easy to blame others for one's own failures. But that wasn't exactly accurate. It was easy to blame herself for what had happened--hard to live with it.”
― Frank Beddor, quote from ArchEnemy


“Setting sail from Tidore, his next port of call was the island of Celebes, where he found himself royally entertained by the King of Butung.... This island unknown to the English but Middleton (Captain David Middleton) enjoyed his stay here and found the King a curious fellow who was only to keen to entertain his guests with banquets and sweetmeats. Some meals were novel affairs; the ship's purser found himself eating in a room whose interior decor consisted entirely of rotting human heads, dangling from the ceiling.”
― Giles Milton, quote from Nathaniel's Nutmeg: How One Man's Courage Changed the Course of History


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