Quotes From Equilibrium

Partridge: You always knew. [begins to read from Yeats]
Partridge: "But I, being poor, have only my dreams. I have spread my dreams under your feet. Tread softly because you tread on my dreams." I assume you dream, Preston.


John Preston: I'll do what I can to see they go easy on you.
Partridge: We both know they never "go easy".
John Preston: Then, I'm sorry.
Partridge: No, you're not. You don't even know the meaning. Its just a vestigial word for a feeling you've never felt.


John Preston: There's no war. No murder.
Partridge: What is it you think we do?
John Preston: No. You've been with me, you've seen how it can be - the jealousy, rage.
Partridge: A heavy cost. I pay it gladly. [Reaches for his gun]


John Preston: When we return from the Nether it always reminds me of why we do what we do.
Partridge: It does?
John Preston: [Pauses; He takes notice of Partridge's intonation] I beg your pardon?
Partridge: [Withdraws Prozium-administering device from his pocket and injects himself with it.] It does.


Mary: Let me ask you something. [Grabs his hand]
Mary: Why are you alive?
John Preston: [Breaks free] I'm alive... I live... to safeguard the continuity of this great society. To serve Libria.
Mary: It's circular. You exist to continue your existence. What's the point?
John Preston: What's the point of your existence?
Mary: To feel. 'Cause you've never done it, you can never know it. But it's as vital as breath. And without it, without love, without anger, without sorrow, breath is just a clock... ticking.


John Preston: Then I have no choice but to remand you to the Palace of Justice for processing.
Mary: Processing. You mean execution, don't you?
John Preston: Processing.


Brandt: Always practicing, Cleric. Maybe that's why you're the best.
John Preston: Maybe I'm just better.


Brandt: What are you doing?
John Preston: I'm rearranging my desk.
Brandt: You didn't like the way it was before?
John Preston: I had no feelings about it. I'm merely attempting to optimize.


Brandt: I'm not feeling! He is the one who's feeling!


Father: Libria, I congratulate you. At last peace reigns in the heart of man. At last war is but a word whose meaning fades from our understanding. At last, we are whole. Librians, there is a disease in the heart of man. Its symptom is hate. Its symptom is anger. Its symptom is rage. Its symptom is war. The disease is human emotion. But Libria, I congratulate you, for there is a cure for this disease. At the cost of the dizzying highs of human emotion, we have suppressed its abysmal lows. And you, as a society, have embraced this cure. Prozium. Now we are at peace with ourselves and human kind is one. War is gone. Hate, a memory. We are our own conscience now, and it is this conscience that guides us to rate EC-10, for emotional content, all those things that might tempt us to feel, again, and destroy them. Librians, you have won. Against all odds, and your own natures. You, have, survived.


Father: Prozium - The great nepenthe. Opiate of our masses. Glue of our great society. Salve and salvation, it has delivered us from pathos, from sorrow, the deepest chasms of melancholy and hate. With it, we anesthetize grief, annihilate jealousy, obliterate rage. Those sister impulses towards joy, love, and elation are anesthetized in stride, we accept as fair sacrifice. For we embrace Prozium in its unifying fullness and all that it has done to make us great.


Father: Mankind united with infinitely greater purpose in pursuit of war than he ever did in pursuit of peace.


DuPont: Be careful Preston. You're treading on my dreams.


DuPont: Wait! Wait! Look at me. Look at me. I'm life. I live... I, I breathe... I feel. Now that you know it... can you really take it? Is it really worth the price? [Preston sees a flash of Mary's face]
John Preston: I pay it gladly.