Marion Robert Morrison (1907-1979) made his first screen appearance in 1926 – an uncredited role as a Yale football player in a silent sports-and-romance drama called “Brown of Harvard.” A series of other blink-and-you’ll-miss-him roles followed, until prolific Old-Hollywood director Raoul Walsh cast him as the lead in a 1930 Western talkie called “The Big Trail” – and rechristened him with the made-up name “John Wayne.”
Wayne went on to become one of the biggest stars of 20th-century cinema, an iconic on-screen man’s man, known most of all for his tough-talking characters in countless Westerns and war movies (many of them directed by his longtime friend and collaborator John Ford), though he also appeared in romantic comedies and dramas – and even took on the racebending part of the medieval Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan.
Assessments of Wayne’s skills as an actor vary, but he undeniably had great screen presence – in part because of his build (he was square-shouldered and stood 6’4”) but also because of the way he carried himself. His nickname, “The Duke” or “Duke Wayne,” wasn’t a reference to any regal bearing, though. He picked it up as a kid because he never went anywhere without his Airedale Terrier, whose name was…Duke.
Throughout his half-century-long career, Wayne tended to play strong, unequivocally masculine men with an unyielding code of honor. a philosophical bent, and a varied view of women (in some films he respected and protected them; in others he distrusted them or showed them who was boss). In his personal life, he was a prominent conservative and virulent anti-communist, and some of his film roles reflected his beliefs – for instance, “Big Jim McLain” (1952), in which he played a commie-hating agent of the House Un-American Activities Committee, or the pro-Vietnam War film “The Green Berets” – which he also co-produced and co-directed. (These are the best and worst John Wayne movies that aren’t Westerns.)
To assemble a collection of some of the most memorable lines Wayne delivered in his movies, 24/7 Tempo consulted the “Quotes” sections for many of his films on IMDb, an online movie and TV database owned by Amazon, as well as other online collections of quotations.
The quotes we chose come from films covering 36 years of Wayne’s career. Some are aphorisms, some have a touch of humor, some have a macho stance. They’re all part of the John Wayne cinematic persona, however, and – one suspects – expressions of parts of his personality.
Here is a list of the 25 memorable John Wayne movie quotes:
“It takes a good fire to burn down the weeds…to let the flowers grow.”
- Character: Bob Seton
- Film: “Dark Command” (1940)
“I figure a man’s only as good as his word.”
- Character: Rocklin
- Film: “Tall in the Saddle” (1944)
“Never trust a woman or a government.”
- Character: Quirt Evans
- Film: “Angel and the Badman” (1947)
“Sometimes you have to lose before you win.”
- Character: Johnny Munroe
- Film: “Tycoon” (1947)
“We brought nothing into this world and it’s certain we can carry nothing out.”
- Character: Thomas Dunson
- Film: “Red River” (1948)
“Chawin’ tobacco is a nasty habit. It’s been known to turn a man’s stomach.”
- Character: Captain Nathan Brittles
- Film: “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon” (1949)
“Show me a hero and I’ll write you a tragedy.”
- Character: Major Daniel Kirby
- Film: “Flying Leathernecks” (1951)
“Oh, it’s a fine game, football – noble game. Originated in England in 1823.”
- Character: Steve Williams
- Film: “Trouble Along the Way” (1953)
“A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”
- Character: First Officer Dan Roman
- Film: “The High and the Mighty” (1954)
“Every man should spend a night with a lady who has no illusions about him.”
- Character: Captain Karl Erlich
- Film: “The Sea Chase” (1955)
“Love is a fire. It burns all but the blue sea.”
- Character: Genghis Khan
- Film: “The Conqueror” (1956)
“I don’t believe in surrenders.”
- Character: Ethan Edwards
- Film: “The Searchers” (1956)
“Life is a battle, but you can’t fight it with your fists. You got to fight it with your heart.”
John Wayne interacting with two little girls in a kitchen in a scene from the film The Wings Of Eagles, 1957. (Photo by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/Getty Images)
- Character: Frank “Spig” Wead
- Film: “The Wings of Eagles” (1957)
“In this world, you turn the other cheek, and you get hit with a lug wrench.”
- Character: Joe January
- Film: “Legend of the Lost” (1957)
“No quarter. No mercy for the loser.”
- Character: Sheriff John T. Chance
- Film: “Rio Bravo” (1959)
“You have to be a man first before you’re a gentleman.”
- Character: George Washington “G.W.” McLintock
- Film: “McLintock!” (1963)
“Berlin, Madrid, Paris, Vienna, Budapest. They got a nice sound.”
John Wayne, Rita Hayworth and Miles Malleson have breakfast in a scene from the film Circus World, 1964. (Photo by Paramount/Getty Images)
- Character: Matt Masters
- Film: “Circus World” (1964)
“All battles are fought by scared men who’d rather be someplace else.”
- Character: Captain Rockwell W. “Rock” Torrey
- Film: “In Harm’s Way” (1965)
“There’s right and there’s wrong. You got to do one or the other.”
- Character: Colonel John Henry Thomas
- Film: “The Undefeated” (1969)
“Looking back is a bad habit.”
- Character: Reuben J. “Rooster” Cogburn
- Film: “True Grit” (1969)
“I ain’t butted into somebody else’s business since I was seventeen year old, at which time it almost got me killed.”
- Character: Jacob “Big Jake” McCandles
- Film: “Big Jake” (1971)
“Every man wants his children to be better than he was.”
- Character: Wil Andersen
- Film: “The Cowboys” (1971)
“If a buzzard bites you, he’d never eat meat again.”
- Character: J.D. Cahill
- Film: “Cahill US Marshall” (1973)
“When I start plying a woman with whiskey, it’s time to throw the key in the water bucket and ride on.”
- Character: Lane
- Film: “The Train Robbers” (1973)
“I won’t be wronged. I won’t be insulted. I won’t be laid a hand on. I don’t do these things to other people, and I require the same from them.”
- Character: J.B. Books
- Film: “The Shootist” (1976)