Dame Judi Dench movie quotes

“Any thug can kill. I want you to take your ego out of the equation, and to judge the situation dispassionately. I need to know that I can trust you, and that you know who to trust...and since I don't know that, I need you out of my sight.”

Dame Judi Dench - M

“First love is such sweet despair, Colin.”
Dame Judi Dench - Dame Sybil Thorndike

“Never underestimate God. He forgets nothing.”
Dame Judi Dench - Abbess

- Algy: My dear Aunt Augusta, I mean he was "found out". The doctors found out that Bunbury could not live - that is what I mean - so Bunbury died.
- Lady Bracknell: He seems to have had great confidence in the opinion of his physicians.
Rupert Everett - Algy
Dame Judi Dench - Lady Bracknell

“- Evelyn Greenslade: How was America?
- Muriel Donnelly: It made death more tempting.”
Dame Judi Dench - Evelyn Greenslade
Maggie Smith - Muriel Donnelly

“- Evelyn Greenslade: I don't know why I tell you anything.
- Muriel Donnelly: Because I'm older and wiser.
- Evelyn Greenslade: Nineteen days older.
- Muriel Donnelly: That's the entire lifespan of a wasp.”
Dame Judi Dench - Evelyn Greenslade
Maggie Smith - Muriel Donnelly

“Education doesn't make you happy. And what is freedom? We don't become happy just because we are free, if we are. Or because we have been educated, if we have. But because education may be the means by which we realize we are happy.”
Dame Judi Dench - Iris Murdoch

“[Education] Convinces us that there is only one freedom of any importance whatsoever: that of the mind. And give us the assurance, the confidence, to walk the path our mind, our educated mind, offers.”
Dame Judi Dench - Iris Murdoch

“Every human soul has seen, perhaps before their birth, pure forms such as justice, temperance, beauty and all the great moral qualities which we hold in honour. We are moved towards what is good by the faint memory of these forms, simple and calm and blessed, which we saw once in a pure, clear light, being pure ourselves.”
Dame Judi Dench - Iris Murdoch

“Sometimes it seems to me that the difference between what we want and what we fear is the width of an eyelash.”
Dame Judi Dench - Evelyn Greenslade

“We are the sinners, Edgar. We tolerated lawlessness in the land until it grew to diabolical proportions.”
Dame Judi Dench - Annie Hoover

“- M: Where the hell have you been?
- James Bond: Enjoying death. 007 reporting for duty.”
Dame Judi Dench - M
Daniel Craig - James Bond

“- Gareth Mallory: M, you've had a great run. You should leave with dignity.
- M: Go to hell with dignity. I'll leave when the job's done.”
Ralph Fiennes - Gareth Mallory
Dame Judi Dench - M

“- Lord Wessex: How is this to end?
- Queen Elizabeth: As stories must when love's denied: with tears and a journey.”
Colin Firth - Lord Wessex
Dame Judi Dench - Queen Elizabeth

“I've always loved painting, although I never show anyone what I've done. Mainly because I don't do it well. But it's like a form of visual diary for me. A way of fixing things in my mind.”
Dame Judi Dench

“It is true that there are few plays of Shakespeare that I haven't done.”
Dame Judi Dench

“I don't think anybody can be told how to act. I think you can give advice. But you have to find your own way through it.”
Dame Judi Dench

“Work certainly does help fill a void.”
Dame Judi Dench

“I think you should take your job seriously, but not yourself - that is the best combination.”
Dame Judi Dench

“Arrogance and self-awareness seldom go hand in hand.”

Dame Judi Dench - M

“- Raoul Silva: No remorse. Just as I had imagined.
- M: Regret is unprofessional.”
Javier Bardem - Silva
Dame Judi Dench - M

“- Renard: When I took her, she was promise itself. And then you left her at the mercy of a man like me. You ruined her. For what? To get to me? She's worth fifty of me.
- M: For once, I agree with you.”

Dame Judi Dench - M
Robert Carlyle - Renard

“I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delecate, exotic fruit. Touch it, and the bloom is gone.”
Dame Judi Dench - Lady Bracknell

“- M: 007, what the hell are you doing? Are you kidnapping me?
- James Bond: That would be one way of looking at it.”
Dame Judi Dench - M
Daniel Craig - James Bond

“Reading and writing and the preservation of language and its forms and the kind of eloquence and the kind of beauty which the language is capable of is terribly important to the human beings because this is connected to thought.”
Dame Judi Dench - Iris Murdoch