Jean-Luc Picard quotes from Star Trek: The Next Generation

I think you're still trying to figure out where you are. Where that ship of yours is. How to get back to that life.

The memory is five years old now, but it's still inside me.

Was your life there so much better than this? So much more gratifying, so much more fulfilling, that you cling to it with such stubbornness?

Eline.

It must have been extraordinary. But never in all the stories you've told me have you mentioned anyone who loved you as I do.

It was real. It was as real as this is. And you can't expect me to forget a lifetime spent there.

Yes, I can. I've been patient Kamin. For five years I've shared you with that other life. I’ve listened, I’ve tried to understand, and I have waited. When do I get you back?

You've taught me to pursue the truth, no matter how painful it is. It's too late to back off now. This planet is dying.

Perhaps I should have filled your head with trivial concerns. Games and toys and clothes.

I don't think you mean that.

No, I don't. It just saddens me to see you burdened with the knowledge of things you can't change.

Father, I think I should marry Dannick sooner rather than later, don't you?

Seize the time, Meribor. Live now. Make now always the most precious time. Now will never come again.

We hoped our probe would encounter someone in the future. Someone who could be a teacher. Someone who could tell the others about us.

Oh, it's me, isn't it? I'm the someone. I'm the one it finds. That's what this launching is. A probe that finds me in the future.

Yes, my love.

Eline.

The rest of us have been gone for a thousand years. If you remember what we were, and how we lived, then we'll have found life again.

Eline…

[the rocket rises into the sky] Now we live in you. Tell them of us, my darling.

Jean-Luc Picard

[referring to disembodied head] Data, is this yours?

Data

I believe so, sir.

Jean-Luc Picard

Could it be... Lore?

Data

No, sir. My brother's positronic brain has a Type-L phase discriminating amplifier. Mine is a Type-R.

Just what are you doing with those lamps?

Jean-Luc Picard

Replacing the burners. City ordinance. Makes it safer in case of earthquake.

There hasn't been an earthquake here in thirty years!

Jean-Luc Picard

Well, that takes care of this ward. Time to be moving on.

(scoffs) Earthquakes...

Hear me out, Captain. It's important you understand. You see, I discovered long ago I had the ability to channel my darker thoughts, my unwanted emotions, to others, leaving me unencumbered.

Jean-Luc Picard

Is this what you've done to Counsellor Troi?

I hadn't planned it. I'd expected Maylor to live through the negotiation. Her death could not have been more untimely.

Jean-Luc Picard

So then you deliberately used Deanna.

She's an empath. I was reasonably certain I could establish a link with her. Frankly, I was amazed when I saw how quickly she'd aged. Usually my receptacles survive for years.

Jean-Luc Picard

Receptacles?

Come now, Captain. Surely you can see there's a broader canvas here. If I came to these peace talks hindered by unwanted emotions, the Rekags and Seronians would be condemned to go on fighting

Jean-Luc Picard

You cannot explain away a wantonly immoral act because you think it is connected to some higher purpose.

Captain. do you know how many people have died on this planet in the last forty eight hours? Thousands. Deanna Troi is just one individual.

Jean-Luc Picard

That does not justify brutalising her, nor any of the others you have used.

Ask the Seronian and Rekag children who go to bed each night in fear of their lives. Captain, I get no payment, I have no power base, no agenda. I am willing to risk my life simply to help others.

Jean-Luc Picard

Do you think that makes you appear courageous? Because you're mistaken. You're a coward, Alkar. You exploit the innocent because you're unwilling to shoulder the burdens of unpleasant emotions. Well, this time you will be held accountable. I'm taking you back to the Enterprise to release Counsellor Troi.

I have no intention of releasing her now or ever.

Picard

Constitution class.

Scotty

Aye! You're familiar with them?

Picard

There's one in the fleet museum. But... But then, of course... This is your Enterprise.

Scotty

I actually served on two, but this was the first. She was also the first ship I ever served on as Chief Engineer. Ya know, I served aboard eleven ships -- freighters, cruisers, starships -- but this is the only one I think of. The only one I miss.

Picard

The first vessel that I served on as Captain was called the Stargazer. It was an overworked, underpowered vessel, always on the verge of flying apart at the seams... In every measurable sense, my Enterprise is far superior. But there are times when I would give almost anything to command the Stargazer again.

Scotty

Ah, it's like the first time ya fall in love; you don't ever love a woman quite like that again. Well... To the Enterprise and the Stargazer! Old girlfriends we'll never meet again.

Picard

What do you think of the Enterprise D?

Scotty

She's a beauty with a good crew.

Picard

But...?

Scotty

But... When I was here, I could tell ya the speed that we were traveling by the feel of the deck plates. But on your ship, I feel like I'm just in the way.

Picard

Well, 75 years is a long time. If you would like to study some technical schematics or--

Scotty

I'm not 18, and I can't start out like a raw cadet! No, there comes a time when a man finds that he can't fall in love again. He knows that it's time to stop. I don't belong on your ship. I belong on this one. This is my home. This is where I had a purpose. But it's not real! It's just a computer-generated fantasy! And I'm just an old man who's trying to hide in it. Computer -- shut this bloody thing off. It's time I acted my age.

Picard

Are you responsible for this incident in engineering?

Q

Of course! I needed to find out if what I suspected about the girl were true.

Picard

That being...

Q

That she's Q.

Picard

Your... arrogant pretense at being the moral guardians of the universe strikes me as being hollow, Q. I see no evidence that you're guided by a superior moral code or any code whatsoever. You may be nearly omnipotent, and I don't deny that your... parlor tricks are very impressive. But morality, I don't see it. I don't acknowledge it, Q! I would put human morality against the Q's any day. And perhaps that's the reason that we fascinate you so - because our puny behavior shows you a glimmer of the one thing that evades your omnipotence: a moral center. And if so, I can think of no crueler irony than that you should destroy this young woman, whose only crime is that she's too human.

Q

Jean-Luc, sometimes I think the only reason I come here is to listen to these wonderful speeches of yours...

Picard

You would be so despicable?

Q

Don't be naïve. You have no idea what it means to be Q. With unlimited power comes responsibility. Do you think it is reasonable for us to allow omnipotent beings to roam free through the universe?

Picard

So what have you concluded? Does she live or does she die?

Q

I haven't decided yet.

Guinan

You were on one of the most beautiful planets in the entire quadrant, and you spent the entire time in a cave?

Picard

(nodding happily) It was a very rewarding experience. Look at these fragments! They're very nearly in perfect condition, and yet they're seven hundred years old.

Guinan

So's my father.

I remember the first time I ate a live taspar. I was six years old and living on the streets of Lakat. There was a band of children, four, five...six years old—some even smaller, desperately trying to survive. We were thin, scrawny little animals, constantly hungry, always cold. We slept together in doorways, like packs of wild gettles, for warmth. Once I found a nest. Taspars had mated and built a nest in the eave of a burned-out building. And I found three eggs in it. It was like finding treasure. I cracked one open on the spot and ate it, very much as you just did. I planned to save the other two. They would keep me alive for another week. But of course, an older boy saw them and wanted them. And he got them. But he had to break my arm to do it.

Jean-Luc Picard

Must be rewarding to you to...to repay others for all those years of misery.

What do you mean?

Jean-Luc Picard

Torture has never been a reliable means of extracting information. It is ultimately self-defeating as a means of control. One wonders it is still practiced.

I fail to see where this analysis is leading.

Jean-Luc Picard

Whenever I look at you now, I will not see a powerful Cardassian warrior; I will see a six-year-old boy who is powerless to protect himself.

Be quiet!

Jean-Luc Picard

In spite of all you have done to me, I find you a pitiable man.

Picard, stop it. Or I will turn this on and leave you in agony all night!

Jean-Luc Picard

Aha! You called me "Picard!"

What are the Federation's defense plans for Minos Korva?

Jean-Luc Picard

There are four lights!

We acquired territory during the wars... we developed new resources... we initiated a rebuilding program... we have mandated agricultural programs. That is what the military has done for Cardassia. Because of that... my daughter will never have to worry about going hungry.

Jean-Luc Picard

Her belly may be full... but her spirit will be empty.

Jean-Luc Picard

Be careful... you're showing weakness...

Shall we begin again? How many lights are there?

Jean-Luc Picard

What lights?

Jean-Luc Picard

At the end, he gave me a choice: between a life of comfort...or more torture. All I had to do was say that...I could see five lights, when in fact there were only four.

Deanna Troi

You didn't say it.

Jean-Luc Picard

No. No. But I was going to. I would have told him anything. Anything at all. But more than that—I believed that I could see...five lights.

Troi

In a sense, you did give Moriarty what he wanted.

Picard

In a sense. But who knows? Our reality may be very much like theirs and all this might just be an elaborate simulation running inside a little device sitting on someone's table.