For Star Trek proves, as faulty as individual episodes could be, is that the much-maligned common man and common woman has an enormous hunger for brotherhood. They are ready for the twenty-third century now, and they are light-years ahead of their petty governments and their visionless leaders.

PICARD: There is no greater challenge than the study of philosophy. WESLEY: But William James won't be in my Starfleet exams. PICARD: The important things never will be. Anyone can be trained in the mechanics of piloting a starship. WESLEY: But Starfleet Academy PICARD: It takes more. Open your mind to the past. Art, history, philosophy. And all this may mean something.

Ancient astronauts didn't build the pyramids. Human beings built the pyramids, because they're clever and they work hard.

I wish I had more control, more like Edgar Rice Burroughs had, but I'm a realist, too. I work in television. I don't know that I would want to spend the rest of my life controlling my characters.

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.

They say that ninety per cent of TV is junk. But ninety per cent of everything is junk.

Why are we now going into space? Well, why did we trouble to look past the next mountain? Our prime obligation to ourselves is to make the unknown known. We are on a journey to keep an appointment with whatever we are.