Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.
— William Shatner as Capt. James T. Kirk
Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.
— Patrick Stewart as Capt. Jean-Luc Picard
Star Trek speaks to some basic human needs: that there is a tomorrow — it's not all going to be over with a big flash and a bomb; that the human race is improving; that we have things to be proud of as humans. No, ancient astronauts did not build the pyramids — human beings built them, because they're clever and they work hard. And Star Trek is about those things.
In America, people ask "Do the Ferengi represent Jews?" In England, they ask "Do the Ferengi represent the Irish?" In Australia, they ask if the Ferengi represent the Chinese. The Ferengi represent the outcast... it's the person who lives among us that we don't fully understand. Our program was about investigating the essence of people, not the outside. They forgave me though I stole. (points to Michael Dorn) They forgave him, though he killed. (points to Nana Visitor) They forgave her though she was a terrorist. Starships do not make Star Trek, hope makes Star Trek.
— Armin Shimerman, the Star Trek Engage podcast
I'm a doctor, not a moon shuttle conductor/bricklayer/psychiatrist/mechanic/engineer/scientist/physicist/escalator/magician/miracle worker/veterinarian!
— Dr. Leonard McCoy
Something I seldom say to a customer, Jim. In this galaxy, there's a mathematical probability of three million Earth-type planets. And in all of the universe, three million million galaxies like this. And in all of that and perhaps more, only one of each of us. Don't destroy the one named Kirk.
— Dr. Leonard McCoy, Star Trek: The Original Series, "Balance Of Terror"
Leave bigotry in your quarters; there's no room for it on the bridge.
— Capt. James T. Kirk, Star Trek: The Original Series, "Balance Of Terror"
[The phaser] has two settings: stun and kill. It would be best not to confuse them.
— Malcolm Reed, Star Trek: Enterprise, "Broken Bow"
One day soon, man is going to be able to harness incredible energies, maybe even the atom... energies that could ultimately hurl us to other worlds in... in some sort of spaceship. And the men that reach out into space will be able to find ways to feed the hungry millions of the world and to cure their diseases. They will be able to find a way to give each man hope and a common future. And those are the days worth living for.
— Edith Keeler, Star Trek: The Original Series, "The City on the Edge of Forever"
The Prime Directive is not just a set of rules; it is a philosophy ... and a very correct one. History has proven again and again that whenever mankind interferes with a less developed civilization, no matter how well intentioned that interference may be, the results are invariably disastrous.
— Capt. Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Symbiosis"
Fate. It protects fools, little children, and ships named Enterprise.
Let's make sure that history never forgets the name ... Enterprise.
— Capt. Jean-Luc Picard (in an alternate timeline), "Yesterday's Enterprise"
You're all astronauts on ... some kind of star trek.
— Zefram Cochrane, Star Trek: First Contact
Live long and prosper.
— Mr. Spock
James T. Kirk: I love Italian [food]. (to Spock) And so do you.
Spock: Yes.
Spock: Yes.
I have been and always shall be your friend. Live long and prosper.
— Spock's dying words to Kirk, Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan ( so guess what the next film is about?)
I like this ship! Y'know, it's exciting!
— Montgomery Scott, on the USS Enterprise, Star Trek (2009)
What Hamlet said with irony I say with conviction: "What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god!"
— Capt. Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Hide and Q"
Gillian: Don't tell me; you're from outer space?
Kirk: No, I'm from Iowa. I only work in outer space.
Kirk: No, I'm from Iowa. I only work in outer space.
Spock: I would cite regulation, but I know you will simply ignore it.
Kirk: See? We are getting to know each other.
Kirk: See? We are getting to know each other.
"On this site, a powerful engine will be built. An engine that will allow us to travel a thousand times faster than we can today. And with it, we will explore strange new worlds. Seek out new life and new civilizations. And to go... boldly... where no man has gone before."
— Zefram Cochrane, father of human warp flight, speaking at the dedication of the Warp 5 complex, Star Trek: Enterprise, "Broken Bow"
"This is Captain James T. Kirk/Jean-Luc Picard/Jonathan Archer of the Starship Enterprise."
— repeated line.
"Mr. Paris/Mr. Chakotay. Set a course ... for home."
— Captain Kathryn Janeway, Star Trek: Voyager, "Caretaker" and "Endgame"
"Mr. Kim, we're Starfleet officers. Weird is part of the job."
— Captain Kathryn Janeway to Ensign Harry Kim, Star Trek: Voyager, "Deadlock" (Immediately after Harry's apparent return from the dead via a transfer from a doomed parallel Voyager.)
"Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved eight hundred lives, including your mother's - and yours. I dare you to do better."
Captain Christopher Pike, Star Trek (2009)
"I can assure you, this 'old cat' might not be as toothless as you think."
— Captain Benjamin Sisko, responding to a Klingon fleet's threat to storm his station in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's "The Way of the Warrior". (There's a good reason why the Prophets chose him as their Emissary.)
"We are the Borg. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Your life, as it has been, is over. Resistance is futile.
— The Borg Collective saying the words most guaranteed to make people say "Oh, Crap!".
"You Klingon bastards, you killed my son."
— James T. Kirk, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock giving a strong contender for second place to the above.
"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid."
— Q, Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Q Who" describing the final frontier (also works as a description of the internet).
Q: You hit me! Picard never hit me!
Sisko: I'm not Picard.
— Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, "Q-Less"
"The first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth. Whether it's scientific truth or historical truth or personal truth. It is the guiding principle on which Starfleet is based. And if you can't find it within yourself to stand up and tell the truth about what happened, you don't deserve to wear that uniform!"
— Capt. Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek: The Next Generation, "The First Duty", to Cadet Wesley Crusher,
"There are three things to remember about being a starship captain: Keep your shirt tucked in, go down with the ship, and never abandon a member of your crew."
— Captain Janeway, Star Trek: Voyager, "Dark Frontier" to Naomi Wildman regarding rescuing Seven of Nine from the Borg.
"'Let me help.' A hundred years or so from now, I believe, a famous novelist will write a classic using that theme. He'll recommend those three words even over 'I love you'."
— Captain Kirk, "The City On The Edge Of Forever" (Spock says "Let me help" to Kirk in the very next episode.)
Sisko: Every time I throw this ball, a hundred different things can happen in a game. He might swing and miss, he might hit it. The point is, you never know. You try to anticipate, set a strategy for all the possibilities as best you can, but in the end, it comes down to throwing one pitch after another, and seeing what happens. With each new consequence, the game begins to take shape.
Alien: And you have no idea what that shape is until it is completed?
Sisko: That's right. In fact, the game wouldn't be worth playing if we knew what was going to happen.
Alien 2: You value your ignorance of what is to come?
Sisko: That may be the most important thing to understand about humans. It is the unknown that defines our existence. We are constantly searching, not just for answers to our questions, but for new questions. We are explorers. We explore our lives day by day, and we explore the galaxy, trying to expand the boundaries of our knowledge. And that is why I am here. Not to conquer you with weapons, or with ideas. But to coexist... and learn.
Alien: And you have no idea what that shape is until it is completed?
Sisko: That's right. In fact, the game wouldn't be worth playing if we knew what was going to happen.
Alien 2: You value your ignorance of what is to come?
Sisko: That may be the most important thing to understand about humans. It is the unknown that defines our existence. We are constantly searching, not just for answers to our questions, but for new questions. We are explorers. We explore our lives day by day, and we explore the galaxy, trying to expand the boundaries of our knowledge. And that is why I am here. Not to conquer you with weapons, or with ideas. But to coexist... and learn.
— Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, "Emissary", succinctly summing the very point of Star Trek
Sir, you have a many-legged beast crawling up your shoulder.
— Mr. Spock, Star Trek: The Original Series, "A Taste Of Armageddon", before subjecting an enemy to the Vulcan nerve pinch
Female Changeling: The Alpha Quadrant seems wracked with chaos. It could use some order.
Odo: Imposing your type of order on the Alpha Quadrant may prove more difficult than you imagine.
Female Changeling: We are willing to wait until the time is right.
— Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, "The Search: Part II"
"Survival is insufficient."
— Seven of Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, "Survival Instinct"
"You see, I feel sorrier for you than I do for him because you'll never know the things that love can drive a man to. The ecstasies, the miseries, the broken rules, the desperate chances, the glorious failures, the glorious victories. All of these things you'll never know simply because the word love isn't written into your book."
— Dr. McCoy, to Spock
"The Prime Directive, Admiral [Jellico], last time I checked, did not first appear on the wall of Starfleet Headquarters in flaming letters accompanied by a sepulchral voice intoning, Thou Shalt Not Butt In. It's a guide for day-to-day interaction with developing races so that we don't have umpty-ump Starfleet officers running around playing god by their own rules. But this is not day-to-day Admiral. And we're not talking about playing god. We're talking about showing compassion for fellow living beings. Tell me, Admiral, while you were sitting on Deep Space Five waiting for us to show up, did you actually walk around and interact with the refugees? Did you see the misery in their faces, the fear in their eyes? Did you help patch up the wounded, stand by the bedside of the dying, say a prayer for the dead? Or did you sit isolated in your quarters grumbling over the inconvenience? [...] The Prime Directive was created by men and women, no better or worse than any of us, and I respectfully submit that if our hands are so completely tied by it that we sit around impotently, then we have to seriously reconsider what the hell it is we're all about."
— Commander Riker pissing all over the Prime Directive, courtesy of New Frontier.
Picard: There is no greater challenge than the study of philosophy.
Wesley: But William James won't be in my Starfleet exams.
Picard: The important things never will be. Anyone can be trained in the mechanics of piloting a starship.
Wesley: But Starfleet Academy...
Picard: It takes more. Open your mind to the past. Art, history, philosophy. And all this may mean something.
Wesley: But William James won't be in my Starfleet exams.
Picard: The important things never will be. Anyone can be trained in the mechanics of piloting a starship.
Wesley: But Starfleet Academy...
Picard: It takes more. Open your mind to the past. Art, history, philosophy. And all this may mean something.
— Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Samaritan Snare"
Picard: I sincerely hope that this is the last time that I find myself here.
Q: You just don't get it, do you, Jean-Luc? The trial never ends. We wanted to see if you had the ability to expand your mind and your horizons. And for one brief moment, you did.
Picard: When I realized the paradox.
Q: Exactly. For that one fraction of a second, you were open to options you had never considered. That is the exploration that awaits you. Not mapping stars and studying nebulae, but charting the unknowable possibilities of existence.
Picard: Q, what is it that you're trying to tell me?
Q: You'll find out. In any case, I'll be watching. And if you're very lucky, I'll drop by to say hello from time to time. I'll see you... out there.
— Star Trek: The Next Generation, "All Good Things"
"Up until about a hundred years ago, there was one question that burned in every human, that made us study the stars and dream of traveling to them: 'Are we alone?' Our generation is privileged to know the answer to that question. We are all explorers, driven to know what's over the horizon, what's beyond our own shores. And yet, the more I've experienced, the more I've learned that no matter how far we travel, or how fast we get there, the most profound discoveries are not necessarily beyond that next star. They're within us, woven into the threads that bind us, all of us, to each other. A final frontier begins in this hall. Let's explore it together."
— Capt. Jonathan Archer, Star Trek: Enterprise, "Terra Prime"
