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The Quotable (and Misquotable)Star Trek
In the early 1970s, as Star Trek moved from failed TV series to pop culture phenomenon, quotes—and sometimes misquotes—gained currency as idiomatic expressions. Captain Kirk’s illusory “Beam me up, Scotty” and Mr. Spock’s stately “Live long and prosper” were so often repeated that they quickly became the subject of parody by the mass media. For better or worse, a handful of these catchphrases became emblematic of the series.
“Beam Me Up, Scotty”
This is a phantom phrase along the lines of Humphrey Bogart’s fictitious “Play it again, Sam,” which is not heard in Casablanca, and Sherlock Holmes’s “Elementary, my dear Watson,” which appears nowhere in the canon of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Although Captain Kirk approached the line on several occasions—coming closest in the animated episodes “The Lorelei Signal” and “The Infinite Vulcan,” when he said “Beam us up, Scotty”—he never actually uttered the complete phrase, nor was it spoken by any other character during any Star Trek episode or film. Rather, it originated with a popular bumper sticker from the early 1970s, which read: “Beam me up, Scotty. There’s no intelligent life here.” Regardless of its inaccuracy, “Beam me up, Scotty” emerged as the symbolic catchphrase for Star Trek, and has been co-opted (usually as a punch line) in countless later films and television shows. Scott Bakula, later to star as Captain Jonathan Archer on the series Star Trek: Enterprise, employed the line for comedic effect on a 1992 episode of his series Quantum Leap. James Doohan even titled his autobiography Beam Me Up, Scotty. “I’ve had ‘Beam me up, Scotty’ hollered to me from across four lanes of freeway at 70 miles an hour,” Doohan wrote in the book’s introduction.
“Live Long and Prosper”
Star Trek catchphrases have emblazoned T-shirts, coffee mugs, bumper stickers, and just about everything else in the galaxy.
Mr. Spock’s elegant valedictory was written by science fiction legend Theodore Sturgeon for his teleplay “Amok Time.” The phrase was repeated by Spock in numerous other episodes and feature films, and has been employed by other Vulcans, and sometimes humans, in every subsequent Star Trek series. It can also be found emblazoned on T-shirts, bumper stickers, coffee mugs and all sorts of other Trek merchandise.
“He’s dead, Jim” and “I’m a doctor, not a …”
The irrepressible Dr. McCoy contributed two catchphrases to the Star Trek lexicon. The first of these, “He’s dead, Jim,” was spoken in its entirety or with minor variations twenty times. On other occasions, the doctor used other words (i.e., “The man is dead!”) to announce a character’s demise. Actor DeForest Kelley grew to despise this particular phrase and refused to say it following Spock’s death near the conclusion of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Instead, a similar line was given to Engineer Scott (James Doohan). Nevertheless “He’s dead, Jim” became so linked with McCoy that DeForest Kelley once joked that the words would be carved on his tombstone.
Kelley was much happier with McCoy’s famous “I’m a doctor, not a …” expressions, such as “I’m a doctor, not a bricklayer” (from “The Devil in the Dark”) and “I’m a doctor, not a coal miner” (from “The Empath”). McCoy clarified his vocation nineteen times during the course of the seventy-nine live-action episodes and twenty-two animated adventures. During an appearance on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, DeForest Kelley parodied the catchphrase, saying, “I’m not a doctor, I’m a convicted murderer.” In tribute to McCoy (and Kelley), variations on the line were written for Dr. Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig) on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the Doctor (Robert Picardo) on Star Trek: Voyager, and Dr. Phlox (John Billingsley) on Star Trek: Enterprise. And in J. J. Abrams’s 2009 Star Trek feature film, Dr. McCoy (Karl Urban) says, “I’m a doctor, not a physicist.”
“Space, the final frontier …”
After the series received the green light from NBC, associate producer Bob Justman hit on the idea of running a voice-over during the opening credits (a device not employed for either of the show’s two pilots). This narration would introduce newcomers to the basic concept of the show and set the proper heroic tone. Creator-producer Gene Roddenberry collaborated with associate producers John D. F. Black and Justman to pen this narration. The short speech improved dramatically as it went through multiple rewrites. Roddenberry’s clunky first draft read:
This is the story of the United Space Ship Enterprise. Assigned a five year patrol of our galaxy, this giant starship visits Earth colonies, regulates commerce and explores strange new worlds and civilizations. These are its voyages … and its adventures.
Black contributed an alternate version, eliminated that business about regulating commerce, introduced the opening words “Space, the final frontier,” and incorporated screenwriter Sam Peeples’s phrase “where no man has gone before” (from the title of the second Trek pilot). Justman came up with a third draft, combining and revising elements from the Roddenberry and Black scripts. Then Roddenberry polished Justman’s revision to come up with the now-famous opening:
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.
More Quotes
As these catchphrases gained traction in the American vernacular, diehard Trek fans watched the show’s original seventy-nine installments over and over again in syndication. Many came to know their favorite episodes by heart, and the most ardent could recite scenes back and forth to one another, line by line. Forty years later, Star Trek remains one of television’s most eminently quotable series. Here’s a topically grouped sampling of the show’s wit and wisdom:
On Leadership and Diplomacy
“Risk is our business! That’s what the starship is all about! That’s why we’re aboard her!”
—Kirk, “Return to Tomorrow”
“One of the advantages of being a captain, doctor, is being able to ask for advice without necessarily having to take it.”
—Kirk, “Dagger of the Mind”
“Intuition, however illogical, Mister Spock, is recognized as a command prerogative.”
—Kirk, “Obsession”
“Command and compassion is a fool’s mixture.”
—Gary Mitchell (played by Gary Lockwood), “Where No Man Has Gone Before”
“The chain of command is often a noose.”
—McCoy, “The Conscience of the King”
“The commander is responsible for the lives of his crew, and for their deaths. Well, I should have died with mine.”
—Commodore Decker (William Windom), “The Doomsday Machine”
“I got the biggest [territory] in the world. You know, there’s one thing wrong with having the biggest. There’s always some punk trying to cut you out.”
—Bela Okmyx (Anthony Caruso), “A Piece of the Action”
“The best defense is a strong offense, and I intend to start offending right now.”
—Kirk, “The Empath”
“Maybe you’re a soldier so often that you forget you’re also trained to be a diplomat. Why not try a carrot instead of a stick?”
—McCoy, “Metamorphosis”
“I’m a soldier, not a diplomat. I can only tell you the truth.”
—Kirk, “Errand of Mercy”
“Diplomats and bureaucrats may function differently, but they achieve exactly the same results.”
—Spock, “The Mark of Gideon”
“The best diplomat I know is a fully activated phaser bank.”
—Scotty, “A Taste of Armageddon”
On Gender Politics
“The idea of male and female are universal constants.”
—Kirk, “Metamorphosis”
“Men will always be men no matter where they are.”
—Harry Mudd (Roger C. Carmel), “Mudd’s Women”
“The sound of male ego. You travel halfway across the galaxy and it’s still the same song.”
—Eve McHuron (Karen Steele) in “Mudd’s Women”
“Worlds may change, galaxies disintegrate, but a woman always remains a woman.”
—Kirk, “The Conscience of the King”
“But is not that the nature of men and women? That the pleasure is in the learning of each other?”
—Natira (Katherine Woodville), “For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky”
“Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim.”
—Kirk, “Elaan of Troyius”
Kirk: “That unit is a woman.”
NOMAD: “A mass of conflicting impulses.”
—“The Changeling”
“I have never understood the female capacity to avoid a direct answer to any question.”
—Spock, “This Side of Paradise”
“There’s no right way to hit a woman.”
—Kirk, “Charlie X”
“The imposter had some … interesting qualities, wouldn’t you say, Yeoman?”
—Spock (infamously), after the Evil Kirk has attempted to rape Yeoman Rand in “The Enemy Within”
“Believe me, it’s better to be dead than to live alone in the body of a woman.”
—Janice Lester (Sandra Smith), “Turnabout Intruder”
On Romance
“I’ve already got a female to worry about. Her name’s the Enterprise.”
—Captain Kirk, “The Corbomite Maneuver”
“Extreme feminine beauty is always disturbing, madam.”
—Spock, “The Cloud Minders”
“When I see you, I feel like I’m hungry all over. Hungry. Do you know how that feels?”
—Charlie Evans (Robert Walker Jr.) to Yeoman Rand, “Charlie X”
“And this ship. All this power. Surging and throbbing, yet under control. Are you like that, captain?”
—Lenore (Barbara Anderson), “The Conscience of the King”
“If I touch you again, Your Glory, it’ll be to administer an ancient Earth custom called a spanking …”
—Kirk, “Elaan of Troyius”
“All a girl needs is Don Juan.”
—Tonia Barrows (Emily Banks), “Shore Leave”
“This business of love. You have devoted much literature to it. Why do you build such a mystique around a simple biological function?”
—Kelinda (Barbara Bouchet), “By Any Other Name”
“Too much of anything, Lieutenant, even love, isn’t necessarily a good thing.”
—Uhura, “The Trouble with Tribbles”
“You may find that having is not so pleasing a thing as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true.”
—Spock, “Amok Time”
“My dear girl, I am a doctor. When I peek, it’s in the line of duty.”
—McCoy, “Shore Leave”
On the Human (and Vulcan) Condition
“To be human is to be complex. You can’t avoid a little ugliness from within and from without.”
—Kirk, “Requiem for Methuselah”
“We all have our darker side. We need it! It’s half of what we are. It’s not really ugly. It’s human.”
—McCoy, “The Enemy Within”
“Where there is no emotion, there is no motive for violence.”
—Spock, “Dagger of the Mind”
“The heart is not a logical organ.”
—Janet Wallace (Sarah Marshall), “The Deadly Years”
“Sometimes pain can drive a man harder than pleasure.”
—Kirk, “The Alternative Factor”
“The more complex the mind, the greater the need for the simplicity of play.”
—Kirk, “Shore Leave”
“Blood thins. The body fails. One is finally grateful for a failing memory.”
—Anton Karidian (Arnold Moss), “The Conscience of the King”
“Immortality consists largely of boredom.”
—Zefram Cochrane (Glenn Corbett), “Metamorphosis”
“Every life comes to an end when time demands it. Loss of life is to be mourned only if the life was wasted.”
—Spock, “Yesteryear” (animated episode)
“There are a million things in this universe you can have, and there are a million things you can’t have.”
—Kirk, “Charlie X”
“Man stagnates if he has no ambition, no desire to be more than he is.”
—Kirk, “This Side of Paradise”
“Change is the essential process of all existence.”
—Spock, “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield”
“Monsters come in many forms. You know the greatest monster of them all, Jim? Guilt.”
—McCoy, “Obsession”
“Self-pity’s a terrible first course. Why don’t you try the soup instead?”
—Nurse Chapel, “Obsession”
“Compassion. That’s the one thing no machine ever had. Maybe it’s the one thing that keeps men ahead of them.”
—McCoy, “The Ultimate Computer”
“Humans do have an amazing capacity for believing what they choose and excluding that which is painful.”
—Spock, “And the Children Shall Lead”
“In critical moments, men sometimes see exactly what they wish to see.”
—Spock, “The Tholian Web”
On Ethics
“Spock, I’ve found that evil usually triumphs … unless good is very, very careful.”
—McCoy, “The Omega Glory”
“Without followers, evil cannot spread.”
—Spock, “And the Children Shall Lead”
“Leave any bigotry in your quarters. There’s no room for it on the bridge.”
—Kirk, “Balance of Terror”
“I, too, felt a brief surge of racial bigotry. Most distasteful.”
—Spock, “Day of the Dove”
“Alexander, where I come from, size, shape or color makes no difference,”
—Kirk, “Plato’s Stepchildren”
“This troubled planet is a place of the most violent contrasts. Those who receive the rewards are totally separated from those who shoulder the burdens. It is not a wise leadership.”
—Spock, “The Cloud Minders”
“I speak of rights. A machine has none. A man must!”
—Samuel Cogley (Elisha Cook Jr.), “Court Martial”
“Liberty and freedom have to be more than just words.”
—Kirk, “The Omega Glory”
“Without freedom of choice, there is no creativity. Without creativity, there is no life.”
—Kirk, “The Return of the Archons”
“Uncontrolled, power will turn even saints into savages. And we can all be counted upon to live down to our lowest impulses.”
—Parmen, “Plato’s Stepchildren”
“In every revolution, there is one man with a vision.”
—Kirk, “Mirror, Mirror”
“‘Let me help.’ A hundred years or so from now, I believe, a famous novelist will write a classic using that theme. He’ll recommend those three words over ‘I love you.’”
—Kirk, “The City on the Edge of Forever”
“Knowledge is freedom.”
—Kirk, “The Magicks of Megas-Tu” (animated episode)
On Violence
“Do you know that you’re one of the few predator species that preys even on itself?”
—Trelaine (William Campbell), “The Squire of Gothos”
“You find it easier to understand the death of one than the death of a million. You speak about the objective hardness of the Vulcan heart, yet how little room there seems to be in yours.”
—Spock, “The Immunity Syndrome”
“You [humans] are still half savage. But there is hope.”
—Metron, “The Arena”
Petri: “We cannot make peace with people we detest.”
Kirk: “Stop trying to kill each other. Then worry about being friendly.”
—“Elaan of Troyius”
“In the strict scientific sense, Doctor, we all feed on death. Even vegetarians.”
—Spock, “Wolf in the Fold”
Sulu: “What a terrible way to die.”
Kirk: “There are no good ways, Sulu.”
—“That Which Survives”
“No one may kill a man. Not for any purpose. It cannot be condoned.”
—Kirk, “Spock’s Brain”
“Murder is contrary to the laws of man and God.”
—M-5 Computer, “The Ultimate Computer”
Kirk: “War. We didn’t want it, but we’ve got it.”
Spock: “Curious how often you humans manage to obtain that which you do not want.”
—“Errand of Mercy”
“There’s no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war except its ending.”
—Abraham Lincoln (Lee Bergere), “The Savage Curtain”
“You Earth people glorify organized violence for forty centuries, but you imprison those who employ it privately.”
—Spock, “Dagger of the Mind”
Kirk: “Your Surak is a brave man.”
Spock: “Men of peace usually are, Captain.”
—“The Savage Curtain”
On the Divine
“Mankind has no need for gods. We find the one quite adequate.”
—Kirk, “Who Mourns for Adonais?”
“Maybe we weren’t meant for paradise.”
—Kirk, “This Side of Paradise”
“The glory of creation is in its infinite diversity.”
—Miranda Jones (Diana Muldaur), “Is There in Truth No Beauty?”
On the Final Frontier
“May the Great Bird of the Galaxy bless your planet.”
—Yeoman Rand, “The Man Trap”
“Space still contains infinite unknowns.”
—Spock, “The Naked Time”
On the Crew’s Interpersonal Dynamics
“I can’t change the law of physics!”
—Scotty, “The Naked Time”
“Mr. Scott, there are always alternatives.”
—Spock, “The Galileo Seven”
“This is a mystery, and I don’t like mysteries. They give me a bellyache, and I’ve got a beauty right now.”
—Kirk, “The Man Trap”
“By golly, Jim! I’m beginning to think I can cure a rainy day!”
—McCoy, “The Devil in the Dark”
“You could hardly claim to be an angel with those pointed ears, Mr. Spock. But say you landed someplace with a pitchfork …”
—McCoy, “Bread and Circuses”
Kirk: “Now you’re sounding like Spock.”
McCoy: “If you’re going to get nasty, I’m going to leave.”
—“Tomorrow Is Yesterday”
Kirk: “I suspect you’re becoming more and more human all the time.”
Spock: “Captain, I see no reason to stand here and be insulted.”
—“The Devil in the Dark”
“Shut up, Spock! We’re rescuing you!”
—McCoy, “The Immunity Syndrome”
“Well, this is an Enterprise first! Dr. McCoy, Mr. Spock and Engineer Scott find themselves in complete agreement! Can I stand the strain?”
—Kirk, “The Lights of Zetar”