Cavil quotes from Battlestar Galactica (2003)

Frak!

How do you know I'm human?

Oh, well, maybe because I'm a Cylon and I've never seen you at any of the meetings.

Do you know how useless prayer is? Chanting, and singing, and mucking about with old half-remembered lines of bad poetry? And you know what it gets you? Exactly nothing.

Are you sure that you're a priest?

This thing is the key to my people's survival and I am not leaving without it.

Baltar

Hera is not a thing. She's a child and she holds the key to humanity's survival as well.

And how do you know that?

Baltar

I see angels. Angels in this very room. Now I may be mad, but that doesn't mean that I am not right. Because there is another force at work here. There's always has been. It's undeniable. We've all experienced it. Everyone in this room has witnessed events that they can't fathom, let alone explain away by rational means. Puzzles, deciphered in prophecy. Dreams given to a chosen few. Our loved ones dead ... risen. Whether we want to call that God, or Gods, or some sublime inspiration, or a divine force that we can't know or understand, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. It's here, it exists, and our two destinies are entwined in its force.

If that were true, and that is a big if, how do I know that this force has our best interests in mind? How do you know that God is on your side, Doctor?

Baltar

I don't. God is not on any one's side. God is a force of nature. Beyond good and evil. Good and evil, we created those. Want to break the cycle? Break the cycle of birth, death, re-birth, destruction, escape, death. That's in our hands. In our hands only. Requires a leap of faith. Requires that we live in hope, not fear.

If I give you this girl, that means the destruction of my people. How does our extinction fit into this picture that you want to believe in?