Maj. Horace Holly: Will you tell me something? This women Ayesha, why do you all do her bidding without question?
Billali: It has always been so.
Maj. Horace Holly: Yes, but why? She's only a woman and alone. You are men and many.
Billali: And like all men we are born, live a span and we die. But she has been here forever. She is like the mountains, like the desert. Changeless, ageless, deathless.
Maj. Horace Holly: That I cannot believe. In your fear you have accepted the impossible as truth. No-one lives forever. And no one was born to be the vassel of another. You know this too, I've seen it in your eyes. Your body does her bidding but your spirit cries out to be free. Is that not true?
Billali: Each one of us has his own destiny to fulfil.
Maj. Horace Holly: And yours, I suppose, is to fill the next alcove. I can't believe you're such a fool, Bellali.
Billali: No, Mr Holly. I am not such a fool.

Ayesha: [about Ustane] We must be rid of her!
Billali: I speak again, whatever risk to myself. To be rid of her would be simple, but unwise. If you are to prevail, It is the fair one who must banish her, who must turn against her. He is a man of soul and conscience. These you must destroy.

Ayesha: I am she who must be obeyed!

Ayesha: You tremble, Billali?
Billali: The man who fears your wrath and does not tremble, is a fool, your queen. The man who does not fear your wrath and yet does not tremble in your presence, is not a man.

Leo Vincey: Was that barbaric execution necessary?
Ayesha: It was necessary!
Maj. Horace Holly: In God's name, why?
Ayesha: As a demonstration of my absolute power! How else could I hold my soldiers and these pathetic creatures as my subjects? How else but by instilling fear and terror into their very souls.
Maj. Horace Holly: But nothing is gained by fear and terror.
Ayesha: Is your world so much better? Your world where men kill each other in their millions in the name of freedom? Your world that has not long to live. A few decades only before it destroys itself. Then, what will be left?