- Captain Charles Vane: These men, who brought me here today, do not fear me. They brought me here today because they fear you and because they know that my voice, the voice that refuses to be enslaved, once lived in you. And may yet still. They brought me here today to show you death and use it to frighten you into ignoring that voice. But know this. We are many. They are a few. To face death is a choice.
- [looks at Eleanor Guthrie]
- Captain Charles Vane: And they can't hang us all. Get on with it, mother fucker.
- Pastor Lambrick: I understand the code you subscribe to. I understand you believe your violence is justified in the name of a defiance against tyranny, but there are mothers who buried their sons because of you. Wives widowed because of you. Children awoken in their sleep to be told their father was never coming back because of you. What kind of a man can experience no remorse from this?
- Captain Charles Vane: Whatever remorse I have or do not have is my own. That I choose not to share it with you says more about you than it does about me.
- Pastor Lambrick: Me? I am a shepherd sent to help you find a path to God's forgiveness.
- Captain Charles Vane: A shepherd? You are sheep. And whatever I have to say to God, I'll tell him myself or not at all.
- Captain Flint: Well, I wasn't there, but, um, I can hazard the guess that you have learned of what had happened, told him how fucking stupid he was, and in that moment, he gave you a look that meant something less than contrite. And in that moment you felt it.
- John Silver: Felt what?
- Captain Flint: Darkness, hate, showing indifference to the authority that you sacrificed so much to acquire, disdain for refusing to acknowledge that his actions, had you not intervened, would have let to an outcome that he would have held you responsible for reversing. Pride. Questioning what kind of man you are if you don't seek retribution for the offense.
- John Silver: So what are you saying? You saying I went too far with him?
- Captain Flint: Maybe you went too far. Maybe you didn't go far enough. Maybe you did it just right. The point is that while you were doing it, you heard a voice telling you that disciplining him would prevent him from repeating the offense, a voice that sounded like reason, and there was a reason to it, as the most compelling lies are comprised almost entirely of the truth. But that's what it does. Cloaks itself in whatever it must to move you to action. And the more you deny its presence, the more powerful it gets, and the more likely it is to consume you entirely without you ever knowing it was there. Now, if you and are to lead these men together, you must learn to know its presence well so that you may you use it rather than it using you.