- Dr. Walter Terriss: To achieve the greatest good for the greatest number of people is the fundamental purpose of every law.
- George Johnson: [on compliance with rat control citation] What'll it cost?
- Johnson's Secretary: Twenty-six thousand dollars.
- George Johnson: [stunned] Twenty-six thousand dollars for ratproofing? It's an outrage!
- Johnson's Secretary: But Mr. Johnson - there's a city ordinance!
- George Johnson: City ordinance. City ordinance! When taxes don't run you out of business, city ordinances do! Some swivel-chaired idiot gets a theory, and it costs me thousands of dollars!
- Dr. Walter Terriss: Brennan caught three infected rats. That means there are ten or twenty times that many, still loose somewhere in the neighborhood where he caught them. And it might be anywhere in his territory, which extends from the waterfront ten miles to the city hall. I tell you, Mac, you've got to get Brennan - or we'll have an new epidemic that'll make this one look like a tea party!
- Lt. Edward Macroy: But if Brennan located infected rats, why can't your men relocate them?
- Dr. Walter Terriss: It would take from four days to four weeks to find those burrows, depending upon luck - and by that time, the plague could spread beyond our control.
- Dr. Walter Terriss: Most of the work's done by the Rodent Control Bureau.
- Reporter: Oh - by exterminating all the rats in town?
- Dr. Walter Terriss: That's physically impossible. There are twice as many rats as there are humans in the average American city.
- Peter Brennan: I tell you, they'll put me in jail! As soon as they get the report, they'll know what I did!
- George Johnson: Stop acting like an old woman. You're not in jail yet, and you won't be.
- Peter Brennan: You got me into this - you gotta get me out.
- George Johnson: I'll get you out. Listen - I've got a cabin in the mountains. You'll be perfectly safe there - just lay low, and don't make a move until you hear from me. I'll send you out of the state when this plague scandal is over.
- George Johnson: Put yourself in his place. Facing a jail sentence - it would mean disgrace to his whole family.
- Mrs. George Johnson: But if he has a family, they're already disgraced. All he can do for them now is to give himself up, and save all those other poor people.
- Dr. Walter Terriss: One of the most insidious menaces operating against civic, state and national welfare in America is the attitude of unthinking individuals toward our complex system of laws and ordinances. Now, those laws have been placed upon the statute books only after long and careful deliberation by men who have devoted whole lifetimes to the job of lawmaking. All too frequently, the individual permits selfish indulgence to stand in the way of public welfare. Failure to respect the law very often places the burden of one man's selfishness upon the shoulders of the entire community.