Top 77 Quotes & Sayings by Gene Roddenberry
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American producer Gene Roddenberry.
Last updated on April 15, 2025.
No, ancient astronauts did not build the pyramids - human beings built them, because they're clever and they work hard.
I'd been an Army bomber pilot and fascinated by the Navy and, particularly, the story of the Enterprise, which at Midway really turned the tide in the whole war in our favor. I'd always been proud of that ship and wanted to use the name.
The human race is a remarkable creature, one with great potential, and I hope that 'Star Trek' has helped to show us what we can be if we believe in ourselves and our abilities.
It has become a crusade of mine to demonstrate that TV need not be violent to be exciting.
We stress humanity, and this is done at considerable cost. We can't have a lot of dramatics that other shows get away with - promiscuity, greed, jealousy. None of those have a place in 'Star Trek.'
Time is the fire in which we burn.
I have felt many times trapped by 'Star Trek.' It cost me dearly. It won't anymore, because I've come to grips with what it is and where it fits in my life.
'Star Trek' says that it has not all happened, it has not all been discovered, that tomorrow can be as challenging and adventurous as any time man has ever lived.
I wanted to cast a woman as second in command. NBC said no way.
'Star Trek' speaks to some basic human needs: that there is a tomorrow - it's not all going to be over with a big flash and a bomb; that the human race is improving; that we have things to be proud of as humans.
If 'Trek' is a hit, we'd love to do a series of films - a regular event. Look at James Bond's films. They've been around since the early sixties.
'Star Trek' was an attempt to say 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 lifeforms.
These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five year mission... to boldly go where no man has gone before.
Normal television limits what you can do. With science fiction, you can exercise your imagination more. I fell in love with it.
I wanted to send a message to the television industry that excitement is not made of car chases.
'Star Trek' is a 'Wagon Train' concept - built around characters who travel to worlds 'similar' to our own, and meet the action-adventure-drama which become our stories. Their transportation is the cruiser 'S.S. Yorktown,' performing a well-defined and long-range Exploration-Science-Security mission which helps create our format.
The Russians were responsible for the Chekov character. They put in 'Pravda' that, 'Ah, the ugly Americans are at it again. They do a space show, and they forget to include the people who were in space first.' And I said, 'My God, they're right.'
The ship's transporters - which let the crew 'beam' from place to place - really came out of a production need. I realized with this huge spaceship, I would blow the whole budget of the show just in landing the thing on a planet.
To cast Mr. Spock, I made a phone call to Leonard, and he came in. That was it.
Because something or someone looks or acts differently from us does not necessarily mean that it is ugly or bad.
It is important to the typical 'Star Trek' fan that there is a tomorrow. They pretty much share the 'Star Trek' philosophies about life: the fact that it is wrong to interfere in the evolvement of other peoples, that to be different is not necessarily to be wrong or ugly.
I was tired of writing for shows where there was always a shoot-out in the last act and somebody was killed. 'Star Trek' was formulated to change that.
Earth is the nest, the cradle, and we'll move out of it.
We tried to limit human versus human conflict only to those cases where it could be powerfully motivated and made completely believable.
The strength of a civilization is not measured by its ability to fight wars, but rather by its ability to prevent them.
It was 'ST' format to let space and alien worlds, rather than human weakness, provide the conflict and danger necessary to our adventure show.
I remember myself as an asthmatic child, having great difficulties at 7, 8 and 9 years old, falling totally in love with 'Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle' and dreaming of having his strength to leap into trees and throw mighty lions to the ground.
His name is 'Mr. Spock.' And the first view of him can be almost frightening - a face so heavy-lidded and satanic you might almost expect him to have a forked tail. Probably half Martian, he has a slightly reddish complexion and semi-pointed ears.
Our effects were primitive. Our stars were a black cloth with holes in it and light behind.
We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes.
A man either lives life as it happens to him, meets it head-on and licks it, or he turns his back on it and starts to wither away.
'Star Trek' episodes always insisted that humanity is on its bumpy way to what will be a glorious future in the 23rd century, in which we will have left most of our old selfishness - and old hatreds and prejudices - far behind us.
My model for Kirk was Horatio Hornblower from the C.S. Forester sea stories. Shatner was open-minded about science fiction and a marvelous choice.
When you get into an airplane by yourself and take off, you find yourself in this lovely, three-dimensional world where you can go in any direction. There is no feeling any more exciting than that.
What Kirk wanted every evening was to go to bed with a beautiful woman. Our captain now is a man of infinitely more skill. A better man.
When they put out the sales brochure when we eventually went to series, they carefully rounded Spock's ears and made him look human so he wouldn't scare off potential advertisers.
I hope that I helped to build a fierce pride in what we are and what we can do if we set our minds to it.
It isn't all over; everything has not been invented; the human adventure is just beginning.
Star Trek speaks to some basic human needs: that there is a tomorrow — it's not all going to be over with a big flash and a bomb; that the human race is improving; that we have things to be proud of as humans. No, ancient astronauts did not build the pyramids — human beings built them, because they're clever and they work hard. And Star Trek is about those things.
Religions vary in their degree of idiocy, but I reject them all.
I think God is as much a basic ingredient in the universe as neutrons and positrons. This is the prime force, when we look around the universe.
In the 24th century there will be no hunger, there will be no greed, and all the children will know how to read.
If this is your God, he's not very impressive. He has so many psychological problems; he's so insecure. He demands worship every seven days. He goes out and creates faulty humans and then blames them for his own mistakes. He's a pretty poor excuse for a Supreme Being.
...nuclear warfare is not necessary to cause a breakdown of our society. You take a large city like Los Angeles, New York, Chicago-their water supply comes from hundreds of miles away and any interruption of that, or food, or power for any period of time, you're going to have riots in the streets. Our society is so fragile, so dependent on the interworking of things to provide us with goods and services, that you don't need nuclear warfare to fragment us anymore than the Romans needed it to cause their eventual downfall.
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.
The network told me to get rid of Number One, the woman first lieutenant, and also get rid of 'that Martian fellow'... meaning, of course, Spock. I knew I couldn't keep both, so I gave the stoicism of the female officer to Spock, and married the actress who played Number One. Thank God it wasn't the other way around. I mean Leonard's cute, but...
If man is to survive, he will have learned to take a delight in the essential differences between men and between cultures. He will learn that differences in ideas and attitudes are a delight, part of life's exciting variety, not something to fear.
I condemn false prophets, I condemn the effort to take away the power of rational decision, to drain people of their free will - and a hell of a lot of money in the bargain. Religions vary in their degree of idiocy, but I reject them all. For most people, religion is nothing more than a substitute for a malfunctioning brain.
We are on a journey to keep an appointment with whatever we are.
I believe in humanity. We are an incredible species. We're still just a child creature, we're still being nasty to each other. And all children go through those phases. We're growing up, we're moving into adolescence now. When we grow up - man, we're going to be something!
Star Trek says that it has not all happened, it has not all been discovered, that tomorrow can be as challenging and adventurous as any time man has ever lived.
To be different is not necessarily to be ugly; to have a different idea is not necessarily to be wrong. The worst possible thing is for all of us to begin to look and talk and act and think alike.
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.
The glory of creation is in its infinite diversity.
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.
For most people, religion is nothing more than a substitute for a malfunctioning brain. If people need religion, ignore them and maybe they will ignore you, and you can go on with your life. It wasn't until I was beginning to do Star Trek that the subject of religion arose. What brought it up was that people were saying that I would have a chaplain on board the Enterprise. I replied, "No, we don't.
For me science fiction is a way of thinking, a way of logic that bypasses a lot of nonsense. It allows people to look directly at important subjects.
It is the struggle itself that is most important. We must strive to be more than we are. It does not matter that we will not reach our ultimate goal. The effort itself yields its own reward.
They said God was on high and he controlled the world and therefore we must pray against Satan. Well, if God controls the world, he controls Satan. For me, religion was full of misstatements and reaches of logic that I just couldn't agree with.
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.
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