Heidi: Are these our goats, Grandfather? What are their names?
Adolph Kramer, The Grandfather: Swanli and Bearli.
Heidi: You don't look much like a swan, and you don't look anything like a bear, but I think you're a beautiful goat. I wonder if you give black milk.
Adolph Kramer, The Grandfather: You can milk Bearli.
Heidi: But I don't know how to milk a goat.
Adolph Kramer, The Grandfather: Then it's time you learned.


--Jean Hersholt (as Adolph Kramer, The Grandfather) in Heidi

Heidi: I used to go to Sunday school. Are you going to be my Sunday school teacher, too?
Adolph Kramer, The Grandfather: We'll have our first lesson now.
Heidi: I'd like to read this story. Shall I? "A certain man had two sons, and the wilder and Y-O-U-N-G-E-R..."
Adolph Kramer, The Grandfather: Younger.
Heidi: "Younger of them said to his father, ''ather, give me the P-O-R... '" These are hard words. Maybe you'd better help me.
Adolph Kramer, The Grandfather: "'Give me the portion of goods which is mine.' So the father divided his leaven among them, and the son went away into a foreign country."
Heidi: You know the story by heart.
Adolph Kramer, The Grandfather: Yes, by heart.
Heidi: Did the son ever come home to his father?
Adolph Kramer, The Grandfather: "And the son said, 'Father, I have sinned against Heaven and against you, and I am no longer fit to be called your son.' But the father said, 'Bring the best robe and put it on him, and put rings on his finger. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. For this my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and now is found.'"


--Jean Hersholt (as Adolph Kramer, The Grandfather) in Heidi

Heidi: May I go with Peter today? It may be the last time before the snows.
Adolph Kramer, The Grandfather: All right. All right. But be back early for your lessons.
Heidi: I will. Are you sure you can get along without me?
Adolph Kramer, The Grandfather: I'll try.


--Jean Hersholt (as Adolph Kramer, The Grandfather) in Heidi

Marcus: There's no water... within a hundred miles o' here!
[the two men hopelessly stand by the dead mule in the middle of the desert]
Marcus: We... are... dead... men!


--Jean Hersholt (as Marcus) in Greed

Mr. Sutter: [referring to the mysterious Puerto Rican swampland] You see, it isn't just ghosts you have to contend with but the suspicions of a dangerously ignorant people.


--Jean Hersholt (as ) in Mr. Moto in Danger Island

Adolph Kramer, The Grandfather: I'll not send Heidi to school.
Pastor Schultz: What will you do with her, then?
Adolph Kramer, The Grandfather: She'll thrive up here in the mountains with the goats and the birds.
Pastor Schultz: What will she learn from them?
Adolph Kramer, The Grandfather: She will learn no evil
Pastor Schultz: That's hardly enough schooling for a child.
Adolph Kramer, The Grandfather: I'll teach her all that is necessary.
Pastor Schultz: Then you will teach her religion, too?
Adolph Kramer, The Grandfather: The mountains are the only religion worth having, as I've come to find out.
Pastor Schultz: Come back to Dörfli, neighbor. This is no life for you and the child, at amenity with God and man.
Adolph Kramer, The Grandfather: I know what they think of me in Dörfli, and they know what I think of them. It's better that we keep apart.
Pastor Schultz: I should not like to appeal to the law.
Adolph Kramer, The Grandfather: Heidi will not go to school or church either. That is final.
Pastor Schultz: I'm sorry, neighbor. May God help you.
Adolph Kramer, The Grandfather: And if any man tried to take Heidi away from me, God help him.


--Jean Hersholt (as Adolph Kramer, The Grandfather) in Heidi