Sci-Fi Wisdom of the Week

“It’s a free society, except there ain’t nothing for free.”

-RoboCop (1987)

Sci-Fi Wisdom of the Week

“Tasteless fare. Funerals, bad marriages, lost loves, lonely beds. That is our diet. We suck that misery and find it sweet. We search for more always. We can smell young boys ulcerating to be men a thousand miles off. And hear a middle-aged fool like yourself groaning with midnight despairs from halfway around the world.”

-Mr. Dark (Jonathan Pryce) in Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983)

Sci-Fi Wisdom of the Week

“This isn’t the Republicans versus the Democrats, where we’re in a hole economically or we’re in another war. This is more crucial than that. This is down to the line, folks. This is down to the line. There can be no more divisions among the living.”

-Dawn of the Dead (1979)

Sci-Fi Wisdom of the Week

“Let them be helpless like children because weakness is a great thing, and strength is nothing.  When a man is born, he is weak and flexible. When he dies, he is hard and insensitive. When a tree is growing, it is tender and pliant. But when it is dry and hard, it dies. Hardness and strength are death’s companions. Pliancy and weakness are expressions of the freshness of being, because what has hardened will never win.”

- Stalker (1979)

Sci-Fi Wisdom of the Week

“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 the People.”…These words and the words that follow were not written only for Yangs, but for the Kohms as well. They must apply to everyone, or they mean nothing…”

- Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) in Star Trek: “The Omega Glory.”

Sci-Fi Wisdom of the Week

 "The day we stop playing is the day we start getting old." 

- Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983)

Sci-Fi Wisdom of the Week

"You must unlearn what you have learned."

- The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

Sci-Fi Wisdom of the Week

"You've gotta learn to kick ass if you wanna be a peacemaker."

- Superman II (1981)

Sci-Fi Wisdom of the Week: Star Trek: First Contact (1996)

" Believing oneself to be perfect is often the sign of a delusional mind."

- Star Trek: First Contact (1996)

Sci-Fi Wisdom of the Week: Wing Commander

"You spend so much time out here alone, you end up losing your humanity. When Pilgrims began to lose touch with their heritage, they saw themselves as superior to man. And in their arrogance, they chose to abandon all things human and follow what they called their destiny. Some say they believed they were gods..."

-- Wing Commander (1999) 

Sci-Fi Wisdom of the Week

"Sarcasm is the recourse of the weak mind."

- Lost in Space (1998) 

Sci-Fi Wisdom of the Week

"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we've lived. After all Number One, we're only mortal."

- Star Trek: Generations (1994). 

Sci-Fi Wisdom of the Week

"This is stupid. We should be fucking and drinking by now."

- The Blood of Heroes (1989)

Sci-Fi Wisdom of the Week

"Give my regards to King Tut, asshole."

- Stargate (1994)

Sci-Fi Wisdom of the Week

"I have a theory that there are two kinds of boys. There are those that want to be astronomers, and those that want to be astronauts...That's the difference between imagining and seeing."

-- Jurassic Park III (2001)

Sci-Fi Wisdom of the Week

"So you went from capitalist to naturalist in just 4 years. That's something."

- The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)

Sci-Fi Wisdom of the Week

"Pathetic earthlings. Hurling your bodies out into the void, without the slightest inkling of who or what is out here. If you had known anything about the true nature of the universe, anything at all, you would've hidden from it in terror."

- Flash Gordon (1980)

Sci-Fi Wisdom of the Week

"It's name is Quetzalcoatl.   Just call it Q, that's all you'll have time to say before it tears you apart!"

- Q: The Winged Serpent (1982), to be reviewed tomorrow.

Sci-Fi Wisdom of the Week

"We can no longer live as rats. We know too much."

- The Secret of NIMH (1982), to be reviewed here tomorrow.

Sci-Fi Wisdom of the Week

"Damn it Jim, what the hell is the matter with you? Other people have birthdays, why are we treating yours like a funeral?"

- Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), to be reviewed here tomorrow.