Top 50 Quotes From The Last of the Mohicans

Cora: He saved us. We're alive only because of him.
Colonel: The man encouraged the colonials to desert in this very room and in my presence! Sir! He is guilty of sedition. He must be tried and hanged like any other criminal, regardless of what he did for my children.
Cora: But he knew the consequences, and he stayed. Are those the actions of a criminal?

Cora: Why were those people living in this defenseless place?
Hawkeye: After seven years indentured service in Virginia, they headed out here 'cause the frontier's the only land available to poor people. Out here, they're beholden to none. Not living by another's leave.

Hawkeye: My father's people say that at the birth of the sun and of his brother the moon, their mother died. So the sun gave to the earth her body, from which was to spring all life. And he drew forth from her breast the stars, and the stars he threw into the night sky to remind him of her soul. So there's the Cameron's monument. My folks' too, I guess.
Cora: You are right, Mr. Poe. We do not understand what is happening here. And it's not as I imagined it would be, thinking of it in Boston and in London...
Hawkeye: Sorry to disappoint you.
Cora: No, on the contrary. It is more deeply stirring to my blood than any imagining could possibly have been.

Cora: Please take this as my final answer. It must be: no.

[Duncan aims a pistol at Hawkeye]
Hawkeye: Haven't you got anything better to do on the lake today, Major?
Duncan: [puts away his pistol] When you fall back into English hands I'll have you hanged!

Cora: [to Hawkeye] Say nothing to Alice.

Cora: Justice? If that's justice than the sooner French guns blow the English out of America the better it will be for the people here.
Colonel: You do not know what you're saying!
Cora: Yes I do, I know exactly what I'm saying! And if it is sedition, than I am guilty of sedition too.

Colonel: l have lived to see something which l never expected. A British officer afraid to support another.
Duncan: Webb can burn in hell. And we'll go back and dig our graves behind those ramparts.

Maj. Duncan Heyward: I thought all our colonial scouts were in the militia. The militia is fighting the French in the north.
Hawkeye: I ain't your scout. And we sure ain't no damn militia.

Cora: You've complimented me with your persistence and patience, but the decision I've come to is this. I would rather make the gravest of mistakes than surrender my own judgment.

Colonial: Hello, boys!

Ian: What do we do about being under Crown law?
Jack: l believe if they set aside their law as and when they wish, their law no longer has rightful authority over us. All they have over us then is tyranny. And l will not live under that yoke.

Maj. Duncan Heyward: Might I inquire after the situation sir, given that I've seen the French engineering from the ridge above.
Colonel: The situation is that his guns are bigger than mine and he has more of them. We keep our heads down while his troops dig 30 yards of trench a day. When those trenches are 200 yards from the fort and within range, he'll bring in his 15-inch mortars, lob explosive rounds over our walls, and pound us to dust.

Chingachgook: [speaking to animal they have just killed] We're sorry to kill you, brother. We do honor to your courage and speed, your strength.

Colonel: Those considerations are subordinate to the interests of the Crown.

Magua: The Grey Hair's children were under Magua's knife. They escaped. They will be under it again.

Duncan: There is a war on. How is it you are headed west?
Hawkeye: Well, we kinda face to the north and real sudden-like turn left.

Alice: l shan't sleep tonight. What an adventure. Have you seen the red men?
Duncan: A few.

Colonel: Death and honor are thought to be the same, but today I have learned that sometimes they are not.

Colonel: And how am I to know it wasn't a raid by thieves?
Hawkeye: The cabin was attacked by a war party fighting with the French. They're sweeping south along the frontier attacking farms and Mohawk villages, all the men are stuck here.
Colonel: I need proof more convincing than this man's opinion before I weaken the fort's defenses by releasing the militia.
Jack: Chingachgook had the same opinion about the raid; taken together that's gospel. Your fort will stand or fall depending on Webb's reinforcements, not the presence of the Colonials.
Colonel: I judge military matters here, not you.
Hawkeye: Your judgment is not more important than their right under agreement with Webb to defend their farms and families. Major Hayward was there, he was at John Cameron's, he saw what it was.
Colonel: What exactly did you see Major?
Duncan: [glancing at Cora] I saw nothing that would lead me to the conclusion that it was other than a raid by savages bent on thievery.
Hawkeye: You're a liar.
Colonel: [as Duncan lunges for Hawkeye] Major!
[to Hawkeye]
Colonel: Montcalm is a soldier and a gentleman, not a butcher.
Hawkeye: Easy for you to suppose, it's their women and children on the farms, not yours!
Colonel: You forget yourself, sir.
Jack: We're not forgetting Webb's promise.
Colonel: British promises are honored. And the militia will not be released, because I need more definite proof than this man's word.
Jack: Nathaniel's word's been good on the frontier a long time before you got here.
Colonel: This meeting is over, the militia stays.
Jack: Does the rule of English law no longer govern? Has it been replaced by absolutism?
Hawkeye: If English law cannot be trusted maybe these people would do better making their own peace with the French.
Duncan: That is sedition!
Hawkeye: That is the truth.
Duncan: I'll have you beaten from this fort!
Hawkeye: Someday, I think you and I are going to have a serious disagreement.
Colonel: Anyone fomenting or advocating the leaving of Fort William Henry will be hung for sedition. Anyone actually CAUGHT leaving will be shot for desertion. Now my decision is final. Get out!

[first lines]
Title: 1757 / The American colonies. / It is the 3rd year of the war between England and France for the possession of the continent. / Three men, the last of a vanishing people, are on the frontier west of the Hudson River.

Cora: Yes! Go ahead!
Duncan: What the bloody hell plan is this?
Cora: I want you to go!
Hawkeye: If we go, there's a chance there won't be a fight. There's no powder. If we don't go in that, there's no chance. None! Do you understand?
Duncan: Coward!

Duncan: Where are we going?
Hawkeye: Nowhere.

[last lines]
Chingachgook: Great Spirit, Maker of All Life. A warrior goes to you swift and straight as an arrow shot into the sun. Welcome him and let him take his place at the council fire of my people. He is Uncas, my son. Tell them to be patient and ask death for speed; for they are all there but one - I, Chingachgook - Last of the Mohicans.

Hawkeye: I am Le Longue Carabine! My death is a great honor to the Huron, take me!

Duncan: You there, Scout! We must rest soon, the women are tired.
Magua: No, two leagues, better water. We stop there.
Duncan: No, we'll stop in the glade just ahead. When the ladies are rested, we will proceed. Do you understand?
Magua: [speaking Huron] Magua understands that the white man is a dog to his women. When they are tired, he puts down his tomahawk to feed their laziness.
Duncan: Excuse me, what did you say?
Magua: Magua say... he understand the English very well.

Jack: You're not coming with us?
Hawkeye: I've got a reason to stay.
Jack: That reason wear a striped skirt and work in the surgery?
Hawkeye: It does. No offense, but it's a better looking reason than you, Jack Winthrop.

Cora: The whole world's on fire isn't it.

Cora: They're going to hang you. Why didn't you leave when you had the chance?
Hawkeye: Because what I'm interested in is right here.

Cora: Our father - Did you see my father?
Hawkeye: From a distance.

Gen. Webb: Explain to the Major that he has little to fear from this General Marquis de Montcalm in the first place; and, therefore, scant need of a colonial militia in the second; because, the French haven't the nature for war. Their Latinate voluptuousness combines with their Gallic laziness and the result is they'd rather eat and make love with their faces than fight.

Ongewasgone: There's too many French. And so few of us to fight. Not too many to die.

Hawkeye: [taking Duncan's gun away] In case your aim's any better than your judgment.

Hawkeye: Take me!
Duncan: [as he is being forced away] My compliments, sir! Take her and get out!
Cora: Duncan! What are they doing to Duncan?

Cora: A breed apart, we make no sense?
Hawkeye: In your particular case, Miss, I'd make an allowance.
Cora: Thank you so much.

Hawkeye: We just dropped in to see how you boys was doing.

Hawkeye: My father warned me about you...
Cora: [interupting] Your Father?
Hawkeye: Chingachgook, he warned me about people like you.
Cora: Oh, he did?
Hawkeye: He said "Do not try to understand them".
Cora: What?
Hawkeye: Yes, and, "do not try to make them understand you. That is because they are a breed apart and make no sense".

Duncan: Might l inquire after the situation, sir, given that l've seen the French engineering from the ridge above?
Colonel: The situation is, his guns are bigger than mine and he has more of them. We keep our heads down while his troops dig 30 yards of trench a day. When those trenches are 200 yards from the fort and within range, he'll bring in his 15-inch mortars, lob explosive rounds over our walls and pound us to dust.
Duncan: They look to be 300 yards out. lf they're digging 30 yards a day, you have three days.
Colonel: Damn. Damn.

Magua: When the Grey Hair is dead, Magua will eat his heart. Before he dies, Magua will put his children under the knife, so the Grey Hair will know his seed is wiped out forever.

[last lines]
[Director's Expanded Edition]
Chingachgook: The frontier moves with the sun and pushes the Red Man of these wilderness forests in front of it until one day there will be nowhere left. Then our race will be no more, or be not us.
Hawkeye: That is my father's sadness talking.
Chingachgook: No, it is true. The frontier place is for people like my white son and his woman and their children. And one day there will be no more frontier. And men like you will go too, like the Mohicans. And new people will come, work, struggle. Some will make their life. But once, we were here.

Hawkeye: It was a war party. That means they're going to be attacking up and down the frontier.

Hawkeye: No! You stay alive! If they don't kill you, they'll take you north up to the Huron lands. Submit, do you hear? You're strong! You survive! You stay alive, no matter what occurs! I will find you! No matter how long it takes, no matter how far. I will find you!

Cora: What are you looking at, sir?
Hawkeye: I'm looking at you, miss.

British: You call yourself a patriot, and loyal subject to the Crown?
Hawkeye: I do not call myself subject to much at all.

Duncan: You are defending him because you've become infatuated with him!
Cora: Duncan, you are a man with a few admirable qualities, but taken as a whole, I was wrong to have thought so highly of you.

Cora: You've done everything you can do. Save yourself! If the worst happens, and only one of us survives, something of the other does, too.

Hawkeye: Someday I think you and I are going to have a serious disagreement.

Duncan: [after Uncas spooks the horses to chase them off] Why is he loosing the horses?
Hawkeye: Why don't you ask him?
Uncas: Too easy to track; they'd be heard for miles. Find yourself a musket.

Duncan: And who empowered these colonials to pass judgement on England's policies, and to come and go without so much as a "by your leave"?
Cora: They do not live their lives "by your leave"! They hack it out of the wilderness with their own two hands, bearing their children along the way!

Hawkeye: I'm Nathaniel of the Yengeese. Hawkeye, adopted son of Chingachgook of the Mohican people. Let the children of the dead Munro and the Yengeese officer go free. This belt which is the record of the days of my father's people speaks for my truth.