Gene Roddenberry Quotes

Can all this just be an accident? Or could there be some alien intelligence behind it?

~ Gene Roddenberry

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.

~ Gene Roddenberry

When dreams become more important than reality, you give up travel, building, creating; you even forget how to repair the machines left behind by your ancestors. You just sit living and reliving other lives left behind in the thought records.-- Vina, The Menagerie (The Cage), Star Trek, 1966

~ Gene Roddenberry

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.

~ Gene Roddenberry

It isn't all over, everything has not been invented, the human adventure is just beginning.

~ Gene Roddenberry

Technology would have long ago made privacy impossible, except that this had only made it more precious and desirable--and in the close confines of starship life, respect for another's privacy had become a powerful tradition.

~ Gene Roddenberry

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.

~ Gene Roddenberry

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. […] If we cannot learn to actually enjoy those small differences, to take a positive delight in those small differences between our own kind, here on this planet, then we do not deserve to go out into space and meet the diversity that is almost certainly out there.

~ Gene Roddenberry

No, ancient astronauts did not build the pyramids - human beings built them, because they're clever and they work hard.

~ Gene Roddenberry

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.

~ Gene Roddenberry

The strength of a civilization is not measured by its ability to fight wars, but rather by its ability to prevent them.

~ Gene Roddenberry

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.'

~ Gene Roddenberry

'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.

~ Gene Roddenberry

I wanted to send a message to the television industry that excitement is not made of car chases.

~ Gene Roddenberry