The Story of Ruth (1960)

Elana Eden: Ruth

Photos 

7 more photos

Quotes 

• Ruth : [to Naomi]  Entreat me not to leave you, or to keep from following you. For where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God.

• Ruth : Since you say your God is everywhere... perchance I am stepping on him right now.

  Mahlon : Indirectly, yes, the Earth being one of his creations.

  Ruth : The Earth? Then you may as well claim that he made the moon too.

  Mahlon : It is told that he made two great lights in the heavens. The greater to rule the day and the lesser to rule the night.

  Ruth : And all other luminous objects in the sky, I suppose.

  Mahlon : Yes. And one closer by.

• Ruth : Why do you look at me like that?

  Mahlon : Because you are so beautiful, so very beautiful. Don't you know that you are?

  Ruth : I have never thought about it.

  Mahlon : No one has ever told you? No man has ever looked at you as I do?

  Ruth : If... if he has, I have not seen it.

  Mahlon : You were not watching for it. Isn't it pleasant, even for a priestess to be told that she is beautiful, especially when it's true?

  Ruth : Is beauty so important?

  Mahlon : The beauty that's within, as I know it is with you.

  Ruth : How do you know?

  Mahlon : I am older than you, and the years teach.

• Ruth : [sobbing]  He taught me to care about living things, but he never told me of the pain of caring.

  Naomi : Pain on entering the world, anguish on leaving it. But the interval between is worth it all.

  Ruth : [still sobbing]  How can you say that in such an hour? Look around you, at this hard wilderness, and what do you see but mourning women? Where is Mahlon's invisible God of mercy? Where are his blessings?

  Naomi : You are one of them. You gave my son joy, and you sent him away with peace in his soul. I am grateful, my lady.

• Mahlon : Suppose you wish to pray, but you're not near an image of Chemosh.

  Ruth : Then I go to him.

  Mahlon : Well, suppose a soldier of Moab is wounded on a field of battle and cannot get to an image of Chemosh to pray for his life.

  Ruth : Then he thinks of Chemosh.

  Mahlon : But the Chemosh he's thinking of is invisible at the time he thinks of him. In my work, gracious lady, I have sometimes repaired your god. Isn't it hard to believe that a god who cracks and crumbles and can be repaired by a mere artisan like myself can be the same god who makes the birds sing and the sun rise and set? How can a god whose own head gets broken mend the broken heads of his soldiers?

• Boaz : Why did you come here, Ruth? Because you love Naomi?

  [Ruth nods, confirming her love for her mother-in-law] 

  Boaz : And?

  Ruth : And because I saw a new light in her beliefs, in her God.

• Naomi : Not even a scrap to eat. My husband had two kinsmen here, Boaz and Tob, both men of means. Tob would only rebuff me. My husband was unkind to him. And as for Boaz...

  Ruth : What about Boaz?

  Naomi : It pains me to tell you, but he was the man at the border.

  Ruth : The one who forced the Moabite to drink. Then don't go to either of them, Mother.

  Naomi : But how will we live?

  Ruth : That woman by the well. If she can get along by gleaning, then so can we.

  Naomi : You? You, glean?

  Ruth : They'll let me glean.

  Naomi : Oh, it's not a question of letting. The law gives widows and poor folk the right to glean, but I wouldn't let you.

  Ruth : Widows and the poor? Then I'm entitled twice over.

• Boaz : I love you, Ruth. I have loved you from the day we met in my field.

  Ruth : It must have been God's goodness that brought me to your field that day. Perhaps He's been directing me to you all my life.