The Outer Limits Season 1 quotes

[opening narration] His name is Warren Edgar Morley. For the past six months, he has guarded this gate from eight in the morning until six at night, at which time he is replaced by another just like himself. These are the last few moments of his life.

[closing narration] The Conservation of Energy Law... a principle which states that energy can be changed in form but that it cannot be either created or destroyed. And this is true of all energy... the energy of genius, of madness, of the heart, of the atom. And so it must be lived with. It must be controlled, channeled for good, held isolated from evil, and somehow lived with, peaceably.

[opening narration] The mind of man has always longed to know what lies beyond the world we live in. Explorers have ventured into the deeps and the heights. Of these explorers some are scientists, some are mystics. Each is driven by a different purpose. The one thing they share in common is a wish to cross the Borderlands that lie beyond the Outer Limits.

[closing narration] There are worlds beyond and worlds within which the explorer must explore, but there is one power which seems to transcend space and time, life and death. It is a deeply human power which holds us safe and together when all other forces combine to tear us apart. We call it the power of love.

[opening narration] In man's dark and troubled history, there are vestiges of strange Gods. This stone statue was once such a god a thousand years gone by in the central mountains of Pan-America. Today, new gods have emerged: the god of power, the god of money. The Republic of San Blas lies west of the Orinoco Basin, slightly north of the equator. Its principle exports are coffee, copra, mahogany, mace and saffron. In a hundred odd years, the reigns of government have changed many times in blood and fire and death. The last of these revolutions was led by General Juan Mecurio, the most absolute and powerful ruler of them all. Only the Indians who live close to old gods in the volcanic uplands are unimpressed. They have seen the coming of conquistadors with the power of their guns and flashing flags, the revolutionaries with the power of their zeal and willingness to die, the Americans with the power of their money and bulldozers with their summer houseboats in the crater lake of Ali Papa with their gadgets and machines and devices.

[Act One narration] Moving through the deep, protected only by a tank of air and a hunting spear, the scientist/explorer descends beyond the San Blas shelf; but, all unknown to him, the observer is, himself, observed. Hidden in the sinuous rills of seaweed, sightless eyes, blind for centuries, stare out of the abyss. The legendary creature of the deep, sensing through neuro-receptors in its skin, becomes aware of the alien invader - Man...

[Act Four narration] Stressed and strained by constant drilling of ultrasonic beams, the concrete face of the dam cracks and falls. Ten million tons of pressure build towards ultimate collapse...

[closing narration] The forces of nature will not submit to injustice. No man has the right, nor will the checks and balances of the universe permit him to place his fellows under the harsh yoke of repression. Nor may he again place the forces of nature under the triple yoke of vanity, greed and ambition. In the words of Shelley, "here lies your tyrant who would rule the world immortal".

[opening narration] Throughout history, compassionate minds have pondered the dark and disturbing question: what is society to do with those members who are a threat to society, those malcontents and misfits whose behavior undermines and destroys the foundations of civilization? Different ages have found different answers. Misfits have been burned, branded and banished. Today, on this planet Earth, the criminal is incarcerated in humane institutions.....or he is executed. Other planets use other methods. This is the story of how the perfectionist rulers of the planet Zanti attempted to solve the problem of the Zanti misfits.

Fifteen minutes is not a long time... in our conception of time. For them it could be long enough to conquer a world. When a country allows itself to be coerced, it has to suffer the consequences.

So far the only real consequence is uncertainty.

I've always felt that was one of the worst things a country could suffer.

This is the commander of the government of the planet Zanti. I speak to you from Zanti. You have destroyed the mistakes. We will not retaliate. We never intended to. We knew that you could not live with such aliens in your midst. It was always our intention that you destroy them, and their guards, who were of the same spoiled persuasion. We chose your planet for that purpose. We are incapable of executing our own species, but you are not. You are practiced executioners. We thank you.

[dryly] "Practiced executioners".

[closing narration] Throughout history, various societies have tried various methods of exterminating those members who have proven their inability or unwillingness to live sanely amongst their fellow men. The Zantis merely tried one more method, neither better nor worse than all the others. Neither more human nor less human than all the others. Perhaps merely... non-human.

[opening narration] In dreams, some of us walk the stars. In dreams, some of us ride the whelming brine of space, where every port is a shining one, and none are beyond our reach. Some of us, in dreams, cannot reach beyond the walls of our own little sleep.

[closing narration] Hunger frightens and hurts, and it has many faces, and every man must sometimes face the terror of one of them. Wouldn't it seem that a misery known and understood by all men would lead Man not to deception and murder, but to faith, and hope, and love?

[opening narration] Who has not seen the dark corners of great cities, whose small and shabby creatures wander without purpose in the secret corners of the night? Without purpose? There are those whose purpose reaches far beyond our wildest dreams.