Captain MacHeath: [Hearing a woman singing] Women!... I love the sex!... and a man who loves money might as well be contented with one guinea... as I with one woman.

- Laurence Olivier in The Beggar's Opera (1953)

Captain MacHeath: Ah-hah! I love a free-hearted wench!

- Laurence Olivier in The Beggar's Opera (1953)

Captain MacHeath: Dolly Trull!
Dolly Trull: Dear Captain, I never thought you'd have the imudence to remember me.
Captain MacHeath: Kiss me, you slut!
[They kiss]
Captain MacHeath: Are you as amorous as ever? I bid you're always so taken up with stealing hearts you don't allow yourself time to steal anything else.

- Laurence Olivier in The Beggar's Opera (1953)

The Beggar: What's an opera if everyone is dead in it?

- Hugh Griffith in The Beggar's Opera (1953)

The Beggar: You're never Captain MacHeath, sir!
Captain MacHeath: Never Captain MacHeath, sir? At my mother's breast I was Captain MacHeath, sir!
The Beggar: I would rather not think so! You're not at all as I imagined. No... no... no. I've overwritten you. My captain is higher by two or three inches.
Captain MacHeath: Hmmm. Wll, sir, thanks to you I shall be higher this time tomorrow by the height of a hangman's card.
The Beggar: No, Captain, you'd never do. There is more of you in two bars of my opera than there is in your own body.
Captain MacHeath: Well, I'm sorry for it.
The Beggar: [Disappointed] There's no arguing with reality.

- Hugh Griffith in The Beggar's Opera (1953)