Best trek lines, good or evil

[Commander K]

Share your fave trek lines that give you the chills, good or evil... I always felt this one from Soran and Picards reaction to it memorable:

"You know they say time is the fire in which we burn. Right now, my time is running out. We leave so many things unfinished in our lives. I know you understand."

 

[ED-209]

Now I'm in my 40s Picards line (from the same film) "There are fewer days left than there are behind" - resonates with me more than it ever did before.

 

[Citiprime]

Search For Spock has my favorite lines in the entire franchise. They're character moments that really define these characters.

• "What you had to do. What you always do. Turn death into a fighting chance to live."
• "If you do this, you'll never sit in the captain's chair again ... "Warp Speed."
• "Klingon Commander, this is Admiral James T. Kirk. l'm alive and well on the planet surface. I know this wiII come as a pleasant surprise to you, but our ship was a victim of an unfortunate accident. Sorry about your crew, but as we say on Earth, c'est la vie."
  
• "l'm gonna tell you something that l never thought l'd ever hear myself say. But it seems l've missed you, and l don't know if l could stand to lose you again.'
  
• "What l have done, l had to do ... lf l hadn't tried, the cost would've been my soul."
  
• (Kirk inverting Spock's logic with human nobility) "Because the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many."

I love this exchange from The Voyage Home:

AMANDA: Spock. Does the good of the many outweigh the good of the one?

SPOCK: I would accept that as an axiom.

AMANDA: Then you stand here alive because of a mistake made by your flawed, feeling, human friends. They have sacrificed their futures because they believed that the good of the one, you, was more important to them.

SPOCK: Humans make illogical decisions.

AMANDA: [said with a bit of pride] They do, indeed.​

 

[C.E. Evans]

(from First Contact)
PICARD: I will not sacrifice the Enterprise. We've made too many compromises already. Too many retreats. They invade our space and we fall back. They assimilate entire worlds, and we fall back. Not again! The line must be drawn here, this far, no further! And I will make them pay for what they've done!

(from Into Darkness)
HARRISON: John Harrison was a fiction created the moment I was awoken by your Admiral Marcus to help him advance his cause. A smokescreen to conceal my true identity. My name is Khan...
KIRK: Why would a Starfleet admiral ask a three hundred year old frozen man for help?
KHAN: Because I am better.
KIRK: At what?
KHAN: Everything.

(also from Into Darkness)
KHAN: Well, let's play this out logically then, Mister Spock. Firstly, I will kill your captain to demonstrate my resolve. Then if yours holds, I will have no choice but to kill you and your entire crew.
SPOCK: If you destroy our ship, you will also destroy your own people.
KHAN: Your crew requires oxygen to survive, mine does not. I will target your life-support systems located behind the aft nacelle. And after every single person aboard your ship suffocates, I will walk over your cold corpses to recover my people. Now---shall we begin?

 

[Rowdy Roddy McDowall]

''WHO put the TRIBbles in the QUADrotritiCALe?????''

 

[Oddish]

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." - Jean-luc Picard, quoting Judge Aaron Satie


The first time any man's freedom is trodden upon, we're all damaged.

 

[Commander Troi]

"We're human beings with the blood of a million savage years on our hands, but we can stop it. We can admit that we're killers, but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes. Knowing that we won't kill today."

 

[JoseNoodles]

''WHO put the TRIBbles in the QUADrotritiCALe?????''

HEAR THIS!
Among my people, we carry many such words as this from many lands, many worlds. Many are equally good and are as well respected. BUT WHEREVER WE HAVE GONE, no words have said this thing of importance...in quite this way. Look at these three words written larger than the rest, with a special pride never written before or since; TALL WORDS, proudly saying, "We Tha Peeple." That which you call E Plebnista, was not written for the chiefsorthekingsorthewarriorsortherichorthepowerful BUT FOR ALL THE PEOPLE! Down the centuries, you have slurrrred the meaning of the wuuurds, "We Tha Peeple of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice! Insure domestic Tranquility! Provide for the common defense! Promote the general Welfare! And secure the Blessings of Liberty! To ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and ESTABLISH! this Constitution." These words and the words that follow were not written only for the Yangs, but for the Kohms as well! THEY MUST APPLY TO EVERYONE, OR THEY MEAN NOTHING! Do you understand!?

 

[Oddish]

JANEWAY: "Oh, you're wrong. It's much more than that. This ship has been our home. It's kept us together. It's been part of our family. As illogical as this might sound, I feel as close to Voyager as I do to any other member of my crew. It's carried us, Tuvok. Even nurtured us. And right now it needs one of us."
TUVOK: "I respect your decision. Live long and prosper, Captain."
JANEWAY: "Same to you, old friend."
[From "Year of Hell"]

 

[BillJ]

"You were a psychiatrist once. You know the ugly, savage things we all keep buried, that none of us dare expose. But he'll dare. Who's to stop him? He doesn't need to care. Be a psychiatrist for one minute longer. What do you see happening to him? What's your prognosis, Doctor?" - Kirk, "Where No Man Has Gone Before".

 

[Rowdy Roddy McDowall]

HEAR THIS!
Among my people, we carry many such words as this from many lands, many worlds. Many are equally good and are as well respected. BUT WHEREVER WE HAVE GONE, no words have said this thing of importance...in quite this way. Look at these three words written larger than the rest, with a special pride never written before or since; TALL WORDS, proudly saying, "We Tha Peeple." That which you call E Plebnista, was not written for the chiefsorthekingsorthewarriorsortherichorthepowerful BUT FOR ALL THE PEOPLE! Down the centuries, you have slurrrred the meaning of the wuuurds, "We Tha Peeple of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice! Insure domestic Tranquility! Provide for the common defense! Promote the general Welfare! And secure the Blessings of Liberty! To ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and ESTABLISH! this Constitution." These words and the words that follow were not written only for the Yangs, but for the Kohms as well! THEY MUST APPLY TO EVERYONE, OR THEY MEAN NOTHING! Do you understand!?

Why wouldn't we? We're not in Congress!

 

[Spock .]

"Seize the time! Live now! Make now always the most precious time. Now will never come again." - Picard

"I have been, and always shall be, your friend." - Spock

 

[Oddish]

"For you, and for the boy that I was. He needs you, more than you know. Don't you see? We're going to get a second chance."
Jake, "The Visitor"

 

[fireproof78]

"Walk with me." Captain Robau, Star Trek 2009.

 

[Coops]

More from Generations…
“Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. But I rather believe than time is a companion who goes with us on the journey, and reminds us to cherish every moment because they'll never come again. What we leave behind is not as important how we lived”

Like a previous poster noted, 30 years later these lines hit differently. Twenty year old me didn’t ‘get’ these sorts of quotes but this fifty year old, after encountering more loss than I could’ve expected back then, well he certainly does.

 

[May 20]

From Peak Performance: "...it is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life."

 

[Oddish]

"I offer you a Vulcan prayer, Mister Suder. May your death bring you the peace you never found in life."
- Tuvok, Basics part II

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

"Mr. Worf....FIRE."

 

[Oddish]

"Five card stud, nothing wild, and the sky's the limit."
- Picard, last line of the TNG series.

 

[Citiprime]

This scene from DS9's "Sacrifice of Angels" says everything about the outlooks of these two characters.

WEYOUN: If you ask me, the key to holding the Federation is Earth. If there's going to be an organized resistance against us, its birthplace will be there.

DUKAT: You could be right.

WEYOUN: Then our first step is be to eradicate its population. It's the only way.

DUKAT: You can't do that.

WEYOUN: Why not?

DUKAT: Because! A true victory is to make your enemy see they were wrong to oppose you in the first place. To force them to acknowledge your greatness.

WEYOUN: Then you kill them?

DUKAT: Only if it's necessary.

WEYOUN: I had no idea.

DUKAT: Perhaps the biggest disappointment in my life is that the Bajoran people still refuse to appreciate how lucky they were to have me as their liberator. I protected them in so many ways, cared for them as if they were my own children. But to this day, is there a single statue of me on Bajor?

WEYOUN: I would guess not.

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The way that Jeffrey Combs plays Weyoun during the scene is a mixture of amused by how deluded Dukat is in his hubris while also having a subtle inquisitiveness that's shocked by Dukat's ego and realizes how much of a problem they have with Dukat in charge of their military strategy. It also says everything about the Vorta's roles as programmed tools that Weyoun thinks nothing of committing to a policy of genocide as almost an afterthought.

Gul Dukat's lament about how he was not appreciated by the Bajorans as their "liberator" takes on the dimension of colonial paternalism that defined different occupations throughout our history. Dukat sounds like an abusive father upset about how their "children" can't recognize their greatness, and innate right to rule over their actions. It's a warped belief that they were "caring" for lesser cultures and enlightening them with civilization, even if their methods were brutal, unwanted, and murderous. If you compare that sentiment to those of people who defended the generational rule of the British Raj, or rationalized actions like the murdering of unarmed men, women, and children at the Amritsar Massacre during the British occupation of India as "necessary" for order and civilization, then it sounds a lot like Dukat and the Cardassians.