Context

This line is spoken by Richard Vernon, played by Paul Gleason, in the film The Breakfast Club, directed by John Hughes (1985).

Mr. Vernon is the assistant principal at Shermer High School, and that means he gets the honor of looking after the delinquents in Saturday detention. Does he want to be there babysitting a bunch of bratty teenagers? Nope—but some low-ranking administrator has to, right?

When Mr. Vernon strolls into the library at 7:06AM and addresses the five kids sitting there, he lays down the rules pretty quickly. No talking. No moving. No sleeping—especially you, Bender. The high school students are also supposed to write a one thousand-word essay that answers the eternal question—"Who am I?" (like Mr. Vernon cares).

The only member of the little detention crew who questions Mr. Vernon is John Bender, who immediately insults the vice principal by asking if he raided Barry Manilow's wardrobe. (Hey, we think Barry Manilow actually dresses kind of cool.) Mr. Vernon responds by giving Bender another detention next Saturday and then lays this little bit of wisdom on him: "Don't mess with the bull, young man. You'll get the horns."

Oh man—could Mr. Vernon be any more of a pompous jerk in this scene? Sure, Bender backtalks him a little, but the guy basically walks into this room, talks down to these kids, and flaunts what little power he has. He doesn't care about them at all. In fact, he wants to make sure their day is really miserable. Mr. Vernon might think he's a powerful and dangerous bull, but Bender isn't afraid to knock him down a few pegs—even if it means two months' worth of detentions. Wow.

Where you've heard it

"Mess with a bull, you get the horns," is actually a fairly popular little idiom. It makes sense because, basically, you're just saying that if you try to tangle with a dangerous animal, you might end up getting gored a little. Hey, that never stopped any of those guys in Pamplona, now did it?

Additional Notable References

• Paul Gleason reprised his role (and some of his best lines from The Breakfast Club) in Not Another Teen Movie.
• Olive's favorite teacher, Mr. Griffith, offers her this clichéd advice in the movie Easy A.
• A school vice principal threatens Vin Diesel with this line during The Pacifier. Vin doesn't look too worried, though.
• In the video game League of Legends, a minotaur named Alistar likes to taunt folks with this quote. It kind of fits since he does have the horns to back it up.
• In the Veronica Mars movie, a fresh new Neptune cop is about to spit this line to Veronica and her father, but Veronica cuts him off: "You mess with the bull—" "You get the clichés?" Nice one, Veronica.

Pretentious Factor

If you were to drop this quote at a dinner party, would you get an in-unison "awww" or would everyone roll their eyes and never invite you back? Here it is, on a scale of 1-10.

Using this quote as a serious threat is gonna make you look pretty showy and ridiculous. You're not a bull. You're an assistant vice principal (at best). So let's take it down a few notches, okay?