Charles Laughton credited as playing...
Rembrandt van Rijn
- Rembrandt van Rijn: A creature half child, half woman, half angel, half lover brushed against him... and of a sudden he knew that when one woman gives herself to you, you possess all women. Women of every age and race and kind, and more than that, the moon, the stars, all miracles and legends are yours. The brown-skinned girls who inflame your senses with their play, cool yellow-haired women who entice - and escape you, the gentle ones who serve you, the slender ones who torment you, the mothers who bore and suckled you; all women whom God created out of the teeming fullness of the earth, are yours in the love of one woman.
- Rembrandt van Rijn: What is success? A soldier can reckon his success in victories, a merchant in money. But my world is insubstantial. I live in a beautiful, blinding, swirling mist.
- Rembrandt van Rijn: [to Hendrickje] Take off your shawl. You mustn't be frightened if I look at you. I'm not looking at you as a - man looks. I'm a painter. Painters have a different way of looking at things. You must imagine that I'm looking at you in the same way as the water with which you wash yourself or the air you move in, or the light that shines on you.
- Geertje Dirx: They're going to seize the house. We're going to be flung into the street without a moment's notice. You won't have a thing left to call your own, not even the bed you sleep in.
- Rembrandt van Rijn: I don't care!
- Rembrandt van Rijn: Throw a purple garment lightly over her shoulders - and she becomes the queen of Sheba. Lay your tousled head blindly upon her breast - and she is a Delilah, waiting to enthrall you. Take her garments from her, strip the last veil from her body - and she is a chaste Susanna, covering her nakedness with fluttering hands. Gaze upon her as you'd gaze upon a thousand strange women but never call her yours. For her secrets are inexhaustible, you'll never know them all.
- Rembrandt van Rijn: Your nose is painted by bad liquor. Your mouth is reeking with bawdy kisses. Vanity and stupidity are written all over your face. The only pretty thing about you are your ruffs and your breastplates. And the only distinguished thing about you - are your hats!
- Rembrandt van Rijn: I can still see her. Soon it will fade, it'll be as lost to me as her body is lost in the grave. I haven't got much time.
- Banning Cocq: This thing is, it's a monstrosity. Look at it for yourself. Is that supposed to represent the officers of the noble Civic Guard? A collection of gentlemen? Do those look like gentlemen of rank and position?
- Rembrandt van Rijn: I wasn't trying to paint gentlemen of rank and position. I wanted to paint men, soldiers. A company marching out. Gentlemen of rank and position indeed.
- Rembrandt van Rijn: This will put new life into you. Good health. Dutchman's mother's milk, the staff of life in a stone bottle. And now I'll show you how we drink it in Leiden, where I come from. Come on! Come on!
- Rembrandt van Rijn: Every man has a destined path. If it leads him into the wilderness, he's got to follow it with his head high and a smile on his lips.
- Beggar Saul: I thought I was supposed to be a king? A real king ought to have dozens of beautiful females, lying around on cushions - and offering him drinks.
- Rembrandt van Rijn: You're an old king and you've had all the women you want.
- Rembrandt van Rijn: Give me a kiss if I guess right?
- Party Girl: Yes, you can have a kiss. But if you don't guess right, you'll have to buy me a pot of beer.