What we do in life echoes in eternity

Maximus: I knew a man once who said, "Death smiles at us all. All a man can do is smile back."




[addressing his troops]
Maximus: Fratres!
[Cavalry addresses Maximus]
Maximus: Three weeks from now, I will be harvesting my crops. Imagine where you will be, and it will be so. Hold the line! Stay with me! If you find yourself alone, riding in the green fields with the sun on your face, do not be troubled. For you are in Elysium, and you're already dead!
[Cavalry laughs]
Maximus: Brothers, what we do in life... echoes in eternity.




Quintus: People should know when they are conquered.
Maximus: Would you, Quintus? Would I?




Maximus: Five thousand of my men are out there in the freezing mud. Three thousand of them are bloodied and cleaved. Two thousand will never leave this place. I will not believe that they fought and died for nothing.
Marcus Aurelius: And what would you believe?




Marcus Aurelius: When was the last time you were home?
Maximus: Two years, two hundred and sixty-four days and this morning.




Marcus Aurelius: You have proven your valor once again, Maximus. Let us hope for the last time.
Maximus: There is no one left to fight, sire.
Marcus Aurelius: There is always someone left to fight. How can I
reward Rome's greatest general?
Maximus: Let me go home.
Marcus Aurelius: Ah, home.





Marcus Aurelius: And what is Rome, Maximus?
Maximus: I've seen much of the rest of the world. It is brutal and cruel and dark, Rome is the light.
Marcus Aurelius: Yet you have never been there. You have not seen what it has become. I am dying, Maximus. When a man sees his end... he wants to know there was some purpose to his life. How will the world speak my name in years to come? Will I be known as the philosopher? The warrior? The tyrant...? Or will I be the emperor who gave Rome back her true self? There was once a dream that was Rome. You could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish... it was so fragile. And I fear that it will not survive the winter.




Maximus: I am required to kill, so I kill. That is enough.