Gene Roddenberry Quotes (1921-1991)

“We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes.”

“Vina: They found me in the wreckage, dying. A lump of flesh. They rebuilt me. Everything works. But they had never seen a human. They had no guide for putting me back together.”

“Jean-Luc Picard: 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!”

“I condemn false prophets, I condemn the effort to take away the power of rational decision, to drain people of their free will — and a hell of a lot of money in the bargain. Religions vary in their degree of idiocy, but I reject them all. For most people, religion is nothing more than a substitute for a malfunctioning brain.”

“The strength of a civilization is not measured by its ability to fight wars, but rather by its ability to prevent them.”

“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.”

“Mr. Spock: Doctor, if I were able to show emotion, your new infatuation with that term would begin to annoy me. Dr. McCoy: What term? 'Logic'? Medical men are trained in logic, Mr. Spock. Mr. Spock: Really, Doctor? I had no idea they were trained. Watching you, I assumed it was trial and error.”

“Women of the 24th century consider a man in his early fifties like Picard has having just entered his best years. Active duty Starfleet males, (and females for that matter) have the double attractiveness of being in prime physical condition usually through their seventies and being more aware most humans of the rich variety of personal relationships.”

“Star Trek was an attempt to say that humanity will reach maturity and wisdom on the day that it begins not just to tolerate, but take a special delight in differences in ideas and differences in life forms. […] If we cannot learn to actually enjoy those small differences, to take a positive delight in those small differences between our own kind, here on this planet, then we do not deserve to go out into space and meet the diversity that is almost certainly out there.”

“While the ''Enterprise'''s mission is ostensibly "to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before," its function is really more akin to that naval vessels in the early age of mercentalism. In describing the similarities, series creator Gene Roddenberry noted: "In those days ships of the major powers were assigned to patrol specific areas of the world's oceans. They represented their governments in those areas and protected the national interests of their respective countries. Out of contact with the admiralty office back home for long periods of time, the captains of these ships had very broad discretionary powers. These included regulating trade, fighting bush wars, putting down slave traders, lending aid to scientific expeditions conducting exploration on a broad scale, [and] engaging in diplomatic exchanges and affairs....”

“To get a prime time show - network show - on the air and to keep it there, you must attract and hold a minimum of 18 million people every week. You have to do that in order to move people away from Gomer Pyle, Bonanza, Beverly Hill Billies and so on. And we tried to do this with entertainment, action, adventure, conflict and so on. But once we got on the air, and within the limits of those accident ratio limits, we did not accept the myth, that the television audience has an infantile mind. We had an idea, and we had a premise, and we still believe that. As a matter of fact we decided to risk the whole show on that premise. We believed that the often ridiculed mass audience is sick of this world's petty nationalism and all its old ways and old hatreds, and that people are not only willing but anxious to think beyond most petty beliefs that have for so long kept mankind divided. So you see that the formula, the magic ingredient that many people keep seeking and many of them keep missing is really not in Star Trek. It is in the audience. There is an intelligent life form out on the other side of that television too.”

“I listened to the sermon, and I remember complete astonishment because what they were talking about were things that were just crazy. It was communion time, where you eat this wafer and are supposed to be eating the body of Christ and drinking his blood. My first impression was, "This is a bunch of cannibals they've put me down among!" For some time, I puzzled over this and puzzled over why they were saying these things, because the connection between what they were saying and reality was very tenuous. How the hell did Jesus become something to be eaten? I guess from that time it was clear to me that religion was largely nonsense--largely magical, superstitious things. In my own teen life, I just couldn't see any point in adopting something based on magic, which was obviously phony and superstitious.”

“He looked at me and said, "The difference between your agent and me is that your agent can't get you out of here at five o’clock on Friday and I can. And all it'll cost you is twenty percent". "Gene, I can't do that to this agent," I said. "He got me the job." And then he said, and I will never forget his exact words, "Well, you're just going to have to learn how to bow down and say master."”

“He was a chiseler who wanted a cut of outside money his cast earned, demanded to be called 'master,' and prohibited poor Nimoy from using a company pencil.”