Jean-Luc Picard Quotes

Command & Leadership

Picard’s command style aboard the USS Enterprise-D was built on listening first and deciding alone—and on a handful of maxims his officers repeated for the rest of their careers. The first of these is probably the most quoted sentence he ever spoke.

It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life.

— Picard to Lt. Commander Data, before wargame exercises against the USS Hathaway, 2365

Excessive honesty can be disastrous, particularly in a commander. Knowing your limitations is one thing. Advertising them to a crew can damage your credibility as a leader.

— Picard to Data, on command bearing, 2366

Sometimes, Riker, the best way to win a fight is not to be there.

— Picard to Commander Riker, 2364

Things are only impossible until they are not.

— Picard to Data, 2364

Wesley, you have to measure your successes and your failures within, not by anything I or anyone else might think.

— Picard to Wesley Crusher, after a failed Academy entrance attempt, 2364

I respect an officer who is prepared to admit ignorance and ask a question, rather than one who out of pride will blunder blindly forward.

— Picard to officers under command evaluation, 2365

The claim ‘I was only following orders’ has been used to justify too many tragedies in our history. Starfleet doesn’t want officers who will blindly follow orders without analyzing the situation.

— Picard to Data, commending an act of justified disobedience during the Klingon civil war, 2368

Gentlemen, I have the utmost confidence in your ability to perform the impossible.

— Picard to his senior staff, 2366

Mr. La Forge, time is one thing we do not have in abundance.

— Picard to Lt. Commander La Forge, during the Iconian probe crisis, 2365

If we’re going to be damned, let’s be damned for what we really are.

— Picard to Commander Riker, during the trial of humanity convened by the entity Q, 2364

You’re only ever really as good as those around you. Your crew become a part of you. Complete you. They lift you up to accomplish the things you never could do alone.

— Picard, in counsel to his son Jack Crusher, 2401

There will be a time when you will need to remember that no matter how bleak or unwinnable a situation, as long as you and your crew remain steadfast in your dedication, one to another, you are never ever without hope.

— Picard, recalling a lesson of command, 2401

The Borg & Locutus

No quotes in Picard’s record are studied more closely than the Borg exchanges—his defiance before assimilation, the Locutus of Borg broadcasts that preceded the massacre at Wolf 359, and the harder, quieter things he said about the Collective for the rest of his life.

Mr. Worf, dispatch a subspace message to Admiral Hanson. We have engaged the Borg.

— Picard to Lt. Worf, on first intercepting the Borg cube inbound for Earth, 2366

I have nothing to say to you. And I will resist you with my last ounce of strength!

Impossible! My culture is based on freedom and self-determination!

We would rather die.

— Picard’s three replies to the Borg ultimatum, moments before his abduction from the bridge of the Enterprise-D, 2366

I am Locutus of Borg. Resistance is futile. Your life as it has been… is over. From this time forward, you will service… us.

— spoken as Locutus, Borg broadcast to the Enterprise-D before the Battle of Wolf 359, 2366

The knowledge and experience of the human Picard is part of us now. It has prepared us for all possible courses of action. Your resistance is hopeless… Number One.

— spoken as Locutus to Commander Riker, 2367

They took everything I was. They used me to kill and to destroy and I couldn’t stop them. I should have been able to stop them. I tried. I tried so hard. But I wasn’t strong enough. I wasn’t good enough! I should have been able to stop them. I should… I should…

— Picard to his brother Robert, at the family vineyard in La Barre, during his recovery leave, 2367

Almost human—with just a… bit of a headache.

— Picard to Counselor Troi, asked how he felt after being severed from the Collective, 2367

Not smugness, not arrogance. But we are resolute, we are determined, and your help is not required.

— Picard to Q, after first contact with the Borg at System J-25, 2365

Well, perhaps what we most needed was a kick in our complacency, to prepare us ready for what lies ahead.

— Picard, in the wake of the J-25 encounter, 2365

Because it’s been given a name by a member of my crew, doesn’t mean it’s not a Borg. Because it’s young, doesn’t mean that it’s innocent.

— Picard on the recovered drone known as Hugh, 2368

Reports of my assimilation are greatly exaggerated.

— Picard to Lily Sloane, during the Borg temporal incursion to 21st-century Earth, 2373

It’s not too late. Locutus could still be with you, just in the way you wanted. An equal. Let Data go and I will take my place at your side, willingly without any resistance.

— Picard’s offer to the Borg Queen, trading himself for Data, 2373

Changed? The Borg? They coolly assimilate entire civilizations, entire systems, in a matter of hours. They don’t change! They metastasize.

— Picard, on reports of a reformed Collective, 2399

Halfway to hell is still not a recommended destination.

— Picard, on partial assimilation, 2401

Diplomacy & Justice

Starfleet sent Picard to its most dangerous borders precisely because he preferred words to torpedoes—and because, when the words ran out, his were usually the last ones standing on the record.

If the cause is just and honourable, they are prepared to give their lives. Are you prepared to die today, Tomalak?

— Picard to Commander Tomalak, facing a Romulan warbird across the Neutral Zone, 2366

We have reason to mistrust one another, but even better reason to set those differences aside. Of course, the question is, who will take the initiative? Who will make the first gesture of trust? The answer is… I will.

— Picard to Tomalak, standing down from an earlier confrontation, 2366

Patience. Diplomacy is a very exacting occupation. We will wait.

— Picard, during the Ba’ku crisis, 2375

How many people does it take, Admiral, before it becomes wrong? Hmm? A thousand? Fifty thousand? A million? How many does it take, Admiral?

— Picard to Admiral Dougherty, opposing the forced relocation of the Ba’ku, 2375

There can be no justice so long as laws are absolute. Even life itself is an exercise in exceptions.

— Picard, contesting a mandatory death sentence on Rubicun III, 2364

There are times, sir, when men of good conscience cannot blindly follow orders. You acknowledge their sentience, but ignore their personal liberties and freedom. Order a man to turn his child over to the state? Not while I’m his captain.

— Picard to Admiral Haftel, refusing to surrender Data’s daughter Lal to Starfleet custody, 2366

‘A matter of internal security.’ The age-old cry of the oppressor.

— Picard, on the Angosian government’s treatment of its veterans, 2366

I have never subscribed to the theory that political power flows from the barrel of a gun.

— Picard to Data, during the Rutian terror campaign, 2366

Imprisonment is an injury, regardless of how you justify it.

— Picard to his alien captors, after escaping their behavioural experiment, 2366

No being is so important that he can usurp the rights of another.

— Picard, on an attempt to appropriate Data’s body, 2365

You may test that assumption at your convenience.

— Picard to Duras, who doubted a Starfleet officer’s readiness to fight, on the Klingon homeworld, 2366

But murder is not justice. There is no solace in revenge. You have had your humanity restored to you. Don’t squander it now.

— Picard to Seven of Nine, on Freecloud, 2399

In revenge, there never is. Let the dead rest… and the past, remain the past.

— Picard, on profit and vengeance, after the recovery of the USS Stargazer, 2364

Exploration & Humanity

Picard described himself as an explorer before a soldier, and his most enduring lines are about what the exploring is for—mortality, memory, communication, and the stubborn refusal to accept that any future is already written.

Let’s see what’s out there. Engage.

— Picard’s first order taking the Enterprise-D into open space, 2364

The search for knowledge is always our primary mission.

— Picard to Dr. Crusher, 2364

Our mission is to go forward, and it’s just begun. There’s still much to do. There’s still so much to learn.

— Picard, after reviving three humans from 20th-century cryostasis, 2364

The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force of our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity.

— Picard to Lily Sloane, explaining the 24th-century economy, 2373

In my experience, communication is a matter of patience, imagination. I would like to believe these are qualities we have in sufficient measure.

— Picard, before the Tamarian first contact at El-Adrel IV, 2368

The Tamarian was willing to risk all of us, just for the hope of communication, connection. Now the door is open between our peoples. That commitment meant more to him than his own life.

— Picard to Riker, after the death of Captain Dathon at El-Adrel, 2368

It’s our mortality that defines us, Soran. It’s part of the truth of our existence.

— Picard to Tolian Soran, in the Veridian system, 2371

Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. But I rather believe that 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 as how we’ve lived. After all, Number One, we’re only mortal.

— Picard to Riker, in the wreck of the Enterprise-D saucer on Veridian III, 2371

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

— Picard, from the remembered life the Kataan probe gave him, 2368

Buried deep within you, beneath all the years of pain and anger, there is something that has never been nurtured: the potential to make yourself a better man. And that is what it is to be human. To make yourself more than you are.

— Picard to Shinzon, his clone, during the Romulan succession crisis, 2379

No, I am not dead. Because I refuse to believe the afterlife is run by you. The universe is not so badly designed!

— Picard to Q, waking after his artificial heart failed, 2369

There are many parts of my youth that I’m not proud of. There were loose threads, untidy parts of me that I would like to remove. But when I pulled on one of those threads it unraveled the tapestry of my life.

— Picard to Riker, after living an alternate version of his own youth, 2369

The past is written, but the future is left for us to write, and we have powerful tools, Rios: openness, optimism, and the spirit of curiosity. All they have is secrecy, and fear, and fear is the great destroyer.

— Picard to Captain Cristobal Rios, aboard La Sirena, 2399

To say you have no choice is a failure of imagination.

— Picard to the synthetic Soji Asha, during the Coppelius crisis, 2399

Fear is an incompetent teacher.

— Picard to Dr. Agnes Jurati, on Coppelius, 2399

I found that even in the darkest circumstances, there is a light. Sometimes, only a glimmer. Trust that light. Find a way back, no matter what it takes.

— Picard, on living with fear and finding a way through it, 2401

Fear is fear. It doesn’t speak in riddles. Fear means you’re smart. You understand the risks.

— Picard to the astronaut Renée Picard, his ancestor, 2401

Earl Grey & the Ready Room

The famous phrases—and the drier, funnier Picard his senior staff knew from the ready room. The tea order entered Federation folklore almost immediately; the rest of these took longer to leak out of the Enterprise’s logs.

Make it so.

— Picard’s standing order of execution, in continuous use from 2364

Engage.

— Picard’s order to go to warp, first recorded on the Enterprise-D, 2364

Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.

— Picard’s replicator order, ready room, USS Enterprise-D

Easily? Oh no, not easily. We handle it because we’re trained to, as you will be. Tea, Earl Grey, hot. But if the time ever comes when the death of a single individual fails to move us—

— Picard to Wesley Crusher, asked how commanders bear losses like the USS Yamato, 2365

Let’s see what this galaxy class starship can do.

— Picard, on his first day commanding the Enterprise-D, 2364

Sometimes, Number One, you just have to bow to the absurd.

— Picard to Riker, 2365

I’d be delighted to offer any advice I have on understanding women. When I have some, I’ll let you know.

— Picard to Data, 2367

I look forward to your report, Mister Broccoli. …Barclay.

— Picard, misspeaking to Lt. Barclay, 2366

He’s my number one dad!

— Picard—temporarily reduced to a twelve-year-old by a transporter accident—improvising a cover story about Riker, 2369

Oh uh… Yes it’s a… it’s it’s for the children. I’m a… I’m a role model.

— Picard to Admiral Blackwell, explaining “Captain Picard Day,” 2370

The dreams are lovely. It’s the waking up that I’m beginning to resent.

— Picard to Laris, at the vineyard in La Barre, 2399

And you thought I was a desperate old man. Quixotic, paranoid, possibly senile… And now the windmills have turned out to be giants.

— Picard to Admiral Kirsten Clancy, vindicated, 2399

Five card stud, nothing wild… and the sky’s the limit.

— Picard, joining his senior officers’ poker game for the first time, 2370

Trials & Testimony

Picard under oath—or under interrogation—produced some of the most consequential words of his career: testimony that ended a witch-hunt, a rebuke that redefined a cadet’s life, and four words spoken through torture that became a byword for the unbroken will.

There… are… four… lights!

— Picard’s final words to Gul Madred, who had spent days torturing him to say there were five, Cardassia, 2369

You cannot explain away a wantonly immoral act because you think it is connected to some higher purpose.

— Picard to Ambassador Ves Alkar, 2369

Admiral? What you’re doing is unethical. It’s immoral. I’ll fight it.

— Picard to Admiral Norah Satie, refusing to cooperate with her tribunal, 2367

Have we become so fearful? Have we become so cowardly that we must extinguish a man because he carries the blood of a current enemy?

— Picard, testifying in defense of crewman Simon Tarses, 2367

The road from legitimate suspicion to rampant paranoia is very much shorter than we think.

— Picard, on the Satie inquiry, 2367

Mr. Worf, villains who twirl their moustache are easy to spot. Those who clothe themselves in good deeds are well-camouflaged.

— Picard to Worf, after the inquiry collapsed, 2367

She, or someone like her, will always be with us. Waiting for the right climate in which to flourish, spreading fear in the name of righteousness. Vigilance, Mr. Worf. That is the price we must continually pay.

— Picard to Worf, closing the matter, 2367

You told the truth up to a point. But a lie of omission is still a lie.

— Picard to Cadet Wesley Crusher, after the Academy flight-team inquiry, 2368

The first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth, whether it’s scientific truth or historical truth or personal truth! It is the guiding principle on which Starfleet is based! If you can’t find it within yourself to stand up and tell the truth about what happened, you don’t deserve to wear that uniform!

— Picard to Cadet Crusher, the same day, 2368

That treaty has kept us in peace for sixty years! And as a Starfleet officer, you’re supposed to uphold it.

— Picard to Admiral Pressman, on the Treaty of Algeron and an illegal cloaking experiment, 2370

I feel as though I’ve been handed a weapon, sent into a room, and told to shoot a stranger. Well, I need some moral context to justify that action. And I don’t have it. I am not content simply to obey orders. I need to know that what I am doing is right.

— Picard—his memory erased—refusing to fire on an unknown vessel, 2368

Speeches & Addresses

Single lines made Picard quotable; the full addresses made him historic. These are the speeches quoted at length in Starfleet ethics courses, command seminars, and Federation law reviews—reproduced here as delivered.

The defense of an android officer’s personhood (Starbase 173, 2365)

When a Starfleet cyberneticist moved to have Lt. Commander Data declared property, Picard argued the case before a judiciary hearing on Starbase 173. His summation became foundational to Federation personhood law.

Your Honour, the courtroom is a crucible. In it we burn away irrelevancies until we are left with a pure product: the truth, for all time. Now sooner or later, this man—or others like him—will succeed in replicating Commander Data. The decision you reach here today will determine how we will regard this creation of our genius. It will reveal the kind of people we are; what he is destined to be. It will reach far beyond this courtroom and this one android. It could significantly redefine the boundaries of personal liberty and freedom: expanding them for some, savagely curtailing them for others. Are you prepared to condemn him—and all who come after him—to servitude and slavery? Your Honour, Starfleet was founded to seek out new life. Well, there it sits! Waiting. You wanted a chance to make law. Well, here it is. Make a good one.

— Picard, summation before a Starfleet judiciary hearing, Starbase 173, 2365

The first link in the chain (board of inquiry, 2367)

Called to testify before Admiral Satie’s spiralling tribunal aboard the Enterprise-D, Picard answered with words he had carried since childhood. The admiral’s response destroyed her own credibility; the hearing collapsed within the day.

You know, there are some words I’ve known since I was a schoolboy: “With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.” Those words were uttered by Judge Aaron Satie as wisdom and warning. The first time any man’s freedom is trodden on, we’re all damaged.

— Picard, testimony before a Starfleet board of inquiry, 2367

“The line must be drawn here” (Earth orbit, 2373)

With the Borg loose aboard the USS Enterprise-E during the temporal incursion of 2373, Picard—the once and former Locutus—refused to scuttle his ship. The declaration that followed is the most quoted moment of his Borg record, and he himself later conceded it was wrong.

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!

— Picard to Lily Sloane, aboard the Enterprise-E, 2373

“History never forgets the name Enterprise” (2366)

During the temporal displacement of the USS Enterprise-C, Picard gave what he believed would be his final order—committing his ship to a hopeless covering action so that the past could be restored. The closing words have entered the language.

Attention all hands. As you know, we could outrun the Klingon vessels. But we must protect the Enterprise-C until she enters the temporal rift. And we must succeed! Let’s make sure that history never forgets… the name… Enterprise. Picard out.

— Picard, final address to all hands, 2366

The Sheliak arbitration (2366)

Given three days by the Sheliak Corporate to remove fifteen thousand colonists from Tau Cygna V or see them exterminated, Picard found his answer in the treaty’s own fine print—and, for once, let his satisfaction show. Asked afterwards by Riker whether he had enjoyed it, his reply is on the record: “You’re damned right.”

Pursuant to Paragraph 1,290, I hereby formally request third party arbitration of our dispute… Furthermore, pursuant to Sub-section D-31 I name the Grizzelas to arbitrate… Unfortunately, they are currently in their hibernation cycle. However, they will awaken in six months, at which time we can get this matter settled. Now, do you want to wait? Or give me my three weeks?

— Picard to the Sheliak Corporate, invoking the Treaty of Armens, 2366

The leap of faith (Devron system, 2370)

Caught in a time-spanning trial arranged by the entity Q, Picard had to ask a crew that barely knew him to risk everything on his word alone.

Now, this will put the ship at risk. Quite frankly, we may not survive. But I want you to believe that I am doing this for a greater purpose, and that what is at stake here is more than any of you can possibly imagine. I know you have your doubts about me, about each other, about this ship. All I can say is that although we have only been together for a short time, I know that you are the finest crew in the fleet. And I would trust each of you with my life. So, I am asking you for a leap of faith—and to trust me.

— Picard to the crew of the Enterprise-D, before entering the Devron system anomaly, 2370

The wedding toast (2379)

At the wedding of his first officer and his counselor, the captain’s toast doubled as a summary of fifteen years of shared service.

Will Riker, you have been my trusted right arm for fifteen years. You have helped keep my course true and steady. Deanna Troi, you have been my conscience and guide. You have helped me to recognize the best parts of myself. You are my family. And in maritime tradition, I wish you clear horizons… my friends, make it so.

— Picard, toast at the wedding of Riker and Troi, 2379

The final frontier is time (Starfleet Academy, 2401)

Addressing an Academy graduating class decades after Wolf 359, Admiral Picard closed with his mother’s words—the ones that had sent him to the stars in the first place.

We often refer to space as the final frontier. But the older I get, the more I come to believe that the true final frontier is time. In command, as in life, what we do in crisis often weighs upon us less heavily than what we wish we had done, what could have been. Time offers many opportunities, but it rarely offers second chances… May you all go boldly into a future freed from the shackles of the past. I stand before you the last Picard… Yet I choose to leave you with the words of my mother, who was no explorer at all. When I was a boy she would point to the night sky and say, “Look up, Jean-Luc, and let’s see what’s out there.”

— Admiral Picard, address to the Starfleet Academy graduating class, 2401