The Best The Ancient One Quotes

The: You became a doctor to save one life above all others. Your own.

[first lines]
The: Master Kaecilius. That ritual will bring you only sorrow.

[from trailer]
The: [to Dr Strange] You're a man looking at the world through a keyhole. You've spent your life trying to widen it. Your work saved the lives of thousands. What if I told you that reality is one of many?

The: I've spent so many years peering through time, looking at this exact moment. But I can't see past it. I've prevented countless terrible futures and after each one there's always another, and they all lead here but never further.
Dr. Stephen Strange: You think this is where you die.
The: You wonder what I see in your future?
Dr. Stephen Strange: No. Yes.
The: I never saw your future, only its possibilities. You have such a capacity for goodness. You've always excelled, but not because you crave success but because of your fear of failure.
Dr. Stephen Strange: It's what made me a great doctor.
The: It's precisely what's kept you from greatness. Arrogance and fear still keep you from learning the simplest and most significant lesson of all.
Dr. Stephen Strange: Which is?
The: It's not about you! When you first came to me, you asked me how I was able to heal Jonathan Pangborn. I didn't. He channels dimensional energy directly into his own body.
Dr. Stephen Strange: He uses magic to walk.
The: Constantly. He had a choice, to return to his own life or to serve something greater than himself.
Dr. Stephen Strange: So I could have my hands back again. My old life?
The: You could and the world would be all the lesser for it. I hated drawing power from the dark dimension but as you well know, sometimes one must break the rules in order to serve the greater good.
Dr. Stephen Strange: Mordo won't see it that way.
The: Mordo's soul is rigid and unmovable, forged by the fires of his youth. He needs your flexibility, just as you need his strength. Only together do you stand a chance of stopping Dormammu.
Dr. Stephen Strange: I'm not ready.
The: No one ever is. We don't get to choose our time. Death is what gives life meaning. To know your days are numbered, your time is short. You'd think after all this time I'd be ready, but look at me. Stretching one moment out into a thousand just so I can watch the snow.

The: [as Doctor Strange is being moved through various dimemsions of the Multiverse] You think you know how the world works? You think that this material universe is all there is? What is real? What mysteries lie beyond the reach of your senses? At the root of existence, mind and matter meet. Thoughts shape reality. This universe is only one of an infinite number. Worlds without end. Some benevolent and life giving. Others filled with malice and hunger. Dark places where powers older than time lie ravenous... and waiting. Who are you in this vast multiverse, Mr. Strange?

The: Arrogance and fear still keep you from learning the simplest and most significant lesson of all.
Dr. Stephen Strange: Which is?
The: It's not about you.

The: We harness energy... drawn from other dimensions of the Multiverse... to cast spells... to conjure shields... and weapons... to make magic. The Ancient One: Through the mystic arts, we harness energy and shape reality.

The: Have you ever seen *that* before in a gift shop?

The: [on magic] You cannot beat a river into submission; you have to surrender to its current, and use its power as your own.
Dr. Stephen Strange: I control it by surrendering control? That doesn't make any sense.
The: Not everything does. Not everything has to. Your intellect has taken you far in life, but it will take you no further. Surrender, Stephen.

Dr. Stephen Strange: How do I get from here to there?
The: How did you get to reattach severed nerves and put a human spine back together bone by bone?
Dr. Stephen Strange: Study and practice. Years of it.

The: [after forcing Strange to experiencing the alternate dimensions] Have you ever seen *that* before in a gift shop?
Dr. Stephen Strange: Teach me.
The: No.

Dr. Stephen Strange: What did you just do to me?
The: I pushed your astral form out of your physical form.
Dr. Stephen Strange: What's in that tea? Psilocybin? LSD?
The: It's just tea... with a little honey.
Dr. Stephen Strange: What just happened?
The: For a moment, you entered the astral dimension.
Dr. Stephen Strange: The what?
The: A place where the soul exists apart from the body.
Dr. Stephen Strange: Why are you doing this to me?
The: To show you just how much you don't know. Open your *eye*.
[She touches Strange's forehead and blasts him into an odyssey across dimensions]

The: I spent so many years peering through time... looking at this exact moment. But I can't see past it.

The: We never lose our demons, Mordo. We only learn to live above them.

The: In this universe, Stephen Strange didn't lose his hands...... .but his heart. Grief-stricken, Strange sought answers across the world and in the Mystic Arts.
Doctor: The Eye of Agamotto, cradle of the temporal singularity discovered by Cagliostro, manipulation and alteration of timelines. Time travel.
Wong: What are you doing?
Ancient: Tinkering with time can weaken the very fabric of the universe. We protect reality. We don't threaten it.
The: And when the threat came and The Ancient One was lost, Stephen Strange stood tall. The man of science became the Sorcerer Supreme.
Doctor: Dormammu, I've come to bargain.
The: Yet despite all he'd gained, Stephen Strange could not let go of the past.

Dr. Stephen Strange: I'm not ready.
The: No one ever is. We don't get to choose our time.
[takes his hand]
The: Death is what gives life meaning. To know your days are numbered. Your time is short. You'd think after all this time, I'd be ready. But look at me. Stretching one moment out into a thousand... just so that I can watch the snow.

The: The language of the mystic arts is as old as civilization. The sorcerers of antiquity called the use of this language "spells." But if that word offends your modern sensibilities, you can call it a program. The source code that shapes reality.

The: You're a man looking at the world through a keyhole. You've spent your whole life trying to widen that keyhole... to see more, to know more. And now, on hearing that it can be widened, in ways you can't imagine, you reject the possibility.
Dr. Stephen Strange: No, I reject it because I do not believe in fairy tales about chakras or energy or the power of belief. There is *no* such thing as spirit! We are made of matter and nothing more. You're just another tiny, momentary speck within an indifferent universe.

Baron: [after The Ancient One leaves Stephen Strange on Everest] How's our new recruit?
The: We shall see... Any second now.
Baron: Oh no, not again.