Major Clipton Quotes in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

[last lines]

Major Clipton: Madness! Madness!

Major Clipton: The fact is, what we're doing could be construed as - forgive me, sir - collaboration with the enemy. Perhaps even as treasonable activity. Must we work so well? Must we build them a better bridge than they could have built for themselves?

Colonel Nicholson: If you had to operate on Saito, would you do your job or would you let him die?... Would you have it be said that our chaps can't do a better job? You're a fine doctor, Clipton, but you've a lot to learn about the army.

Major Clipton: [visits Nicholson in the oven] Sir, you can't stand much more of this. And wouldn't the men be better off working rather than being kept in those cells? The men are doing a wonderful job of it, they're going as slow as they dare; but Saito's cut their food rations. If they don't get put to work, they're going to die. And that's all there is to it.

Colonel Nicholson: Yes, Clipton. I understand, truly. But don't you see it's a matter of principle? If we give in now, there will be no end to it. No!

Major Clipton: Sir, we're lost in the jungle, a thousand miles from anywhere. We're under the heel of a man who will stop at nothing to get his way. Principle? No one will know or care what happens to us! Give in, sir! Please!

Colonel Nicholson: I'm adamant. I will not have an officer from my battalion working as a coolie.

[after speaking with Nicholson and Saito, neither of whom will relent]

Major Clipton: Are they both mad? Or am I going mad? Or is it the sun?