Twelve Angry Men Quotes

“It takes a great deal of courage to stand alone even if you believe in something very strongly.”
― Reginald Rose, Twelve Angry Men

“Facts may be colored by the personalities of the people who present them.”
― Reginald Rose, Twelve Angry Men

“It's very hard to keep personal prejudice out of a thing like this. And no matter where you run into it, prejudice obscures the truth.”
― Reginald Rose, Twelve Angry Men

“There were eleven votes for "guilty." It's not easy for me to raise my hand and send a boy off to die without talking about it first.”
― Reginald Rose, Twelve Angry Men

“This is a quiet, frightened, insignificant old man who has been nothing all his life, who has never had recognition, his name in the newspapers. Nobody knows him, nobody quotes him, nobody seeks his advice after seventy-five years. That's a very sad thing, to be nothing. A man like this needs to be recognized, to be listened to, to be quoted just once. This is very important. It would be so hard for him to recede into the background ...”
― Reginald Rose, Twelve Angry Men

“Nine of us now seem to feel that the defendant is innocent, but we're just gambling on probabilities. We may be wrong. We may be trying to return a guilty man to the community. No one can really know. But we have a reasonable doubt, and this is a safeguard that has enormous value in our system. No jury can declare a man guilty unless it's sure. We nine can't understand how you three are still so sure. Maybe you can tell us.”
― Reginald Rose, Twelve Angry Men

“Look, this boy's been kicked around all his life. You know-living in a slum, his mother dead since he was nine. He spent a year and a half in an orphanage while his father served a jail term for forgery. That's not a very good head start. He's had a pretty terrible sixteen years. I think maybe we owe him a few words. That's all.”
― Reginald Rose, Twelve Angry Men

“Well, it's not easy to stand alone against the ridicule of others. He gambled for support and I gave it to him.”
― Reginald Rose, Twelve Angry Men

“TEN [exploding]. Bright! He's a common ignorant slob. He don't even speak good English!
ELEVEN [slowly]. He doesn't even speak good English.”
― Sherman L. Sergel, Twelve Angry Men

“What a terrible thing for a man to believe! Since when is dishonesty a group characteristic? You have no monopoly on the truth.”
― Reginald Rose, Twelve Angry Men