Stanley T. Banks: Right then I knew we'd lost her. She'll always love us of course, but not in the old way. From now on her love will be handed out like a farmer's wife tossing scraps to the family rooster.


--Spencer Tracy (as Stanley T. Banks) in Father of the Bride

Stanley T. Banks: Who giveth this woman? "This woman." But she's not a woman. She's still a child. And she's leaving us. What's it going to be like to come home and not find her? Not to hear her voice calling "Hi, Pops" as I come in? I suddenly realized what I was doing. I was giving up Kay. Something inside me began to hurt.


--Spencer Tracy (as Stanley T. Banks) in Father of the Bride

Stanley T. Banks: You fathers will understand. You have a little girl. She looks up to you. You're her oracle. You're her hero. And then the day comes when she gets her first permanent wave and goes to her first real party, and from that day on, you're in a constant state of panic.


--Spencer Tracy (as Stanley T. Banks) in Father of the Bride

Thomas A. Edison: [after the latest attempt to find a filament that will work in the electric light] Well, we failed again. That's the net result of nine thousand experiments.
Michael Simon: Too bad, Tom. We know the work you have done. We are as sorry as you are that you didn't get results.
Thomas A. Edison: Results? Man, I got a lot of results. I know nine thousand things now that won't work.


--Spencer Tracy (as ) in Edison, the Man

Thomas A. Edison: [to the Gold Exchange clerk, who once told him he'd have to wait until next Christmas to see Mr. Taggart, before Edison fixed the gold ticker and got an appointment with Taggart:] Merry Christmas.


--Spencer Tracy (as ) in Edison, the Man

Tommy Connors: Come on and I'll show ya how tough I am.


--Spencer Tracy (as Tommy Connors) in 20,000 Years in Sing Sing

Tommy Connors: I'd give a million bucks to be alone with you for a little while honey. Do you love me?
Fay Wilson: Yeah.
Tommy Connors: Well don't come up here dolled up like that anymore.
Fay Wilson: Oh, Tommy.
Tommy Connors: What's the matter with you? Do you want me to go crazy? You have me foaming at the mouth like a cream puff.


--Spencer Tracy (as Tommy Connors) in 20,000 Years in Sing Sing

Tommy Connors: What are you guys trying to do? Make a monkey out of me?
Policeman: Go on and sit down.
Tommy Connors: Say, I guess you don't know who I am. Maybe the warden didn't tell ya. I'm Tommy Connors.
Policeman: Oh yeah? What of it?
[Tommy punches him]
Policeman: Why, you!


--Spencer Tracy (as Tommy Connors) in 20,000 Years in Sing Sing

Father Belacchi: They're getting up a rescue party to climb the mountain.
Zachary Teller: Why, if everybody's dead?


--Spencer Tracy (as ) in The Mountain

Judge: [after Drummond asks the judge for permission to withdraw form the case] Colonel Drummond, what reasons can you possibly have?
Henry Drummond: [Indicates the crowd] Well, there are two hundred of them.
[Crowd reacts angrily]
Henry Drummond: And if that's not enough there's one more. I think my client has already been found guilty.
Matthew Harrison Brady: [Rises] Is Mr. Drummond saying that this expression of an honest emotion will in any way influence the court's impartial administration of the law?
Henry Drummond: I say that you cannot administer a wicked law impartially. You can only destroy, you can only punish. And I warn you, that a wicked law, like cholera, destroys every one it touches. Its upholders as well as its defiers.
Judge: Colonel Drummond...
Henry Drummond: Can't you understand? That if you take a law like evolution and you make it a crime to teach it in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools? And tomorrow you may make it a crime to read about it. And soon you may ban books and newspapers. And then you may turn Catholic against Protestant, and Protestant against Protestant, and try to foist your own religion upon the mind of man. If you can do one, you can do the other. Because fanaticism and ignorance is forever busy, and needs feeding. And soon, your Honor, with banners flying and with drums beating we'll be marching backward, BACKWARD, through the glorious ages of that Sixteenth Century when bigots burned the man who dared bring enlightenment and intelligence to the human mind!
Judge: I hope counsel does not mean to imply that this court is bigoted.
Henry Drummond: Well, your honor has the right to hope.
Judge: I have the right to do more than that.
Henry Drummond: You have the power to do more than that.
[the Judge holds Drummond in contempt of court]


--Spencer Tracy (as Henry Drummond) in Inherit the Wind