5th most-quoted character in Star Trek: The Next Generation: in 54 of its 525 quotes Most scenes with: Jean-Luc Picard (18), Data (7), William Riker (4)
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...
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?
Blasphemy! You're lucky I don't cast you out or smite you or something. The bottom line is, your life ended about five minutes ago... under the inept ministrations of Dr. Beverly Crusher.
I can't live out my days as that person! That man is bereft of passion... and imagination! That is not who I am!
Q
Au contraire! He's the person you wanted to be. One who was less arrogant and undisciplined in his youth? One who was less like me? The Jean-Luc Picard you wanted to be -- the one who did not fight the Naussicans -- had quite a different career from the one you remember. That Picard never had a brush with death, never came face-to-face with his own mortality, never realized how fragile life is...or how important each moment can, and should, be. So his life never came into focus. He drifted for much of his career, with no plan or agenda, going from one assignment to the next, never seizing the opportunities that presented themselves. He never led the away team on Milica 3 to save the ambassador, never took charge of the Stargazer's bridge when its captain was killed; and no one ever offered him a command. He learned to play it safe...and he never, ever, got noticed by anyone.
I would rather die as the man I know is truly within me -- with a full life, a real life, behind me -- than have my name on the biography I just listened to.
Time may be eternal, Captain, but our patience is not. It's time to put an end to your little "trek" through the stars; make room for other more…worthy species.
[to crowd] He doesn't understand! [to Picard] You obtuse piece of flotsam, you are to be denied existence. Humanity's fate has been sealed, you will be destroyed.
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.
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.
Star Trek: The Next Generation · 525 quotes
Q
