Jean-Luc Picard Quotes Every Starfleet Officer Should Know
To boldly go where no one has gone before requires courage, but also a fair share of wisdom — and no captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise had as much wisdom to offer as Jean-Luc Picard, who occupied the captain’s chair on Star Trek: The Next Generation for 178 episodes (and four movies) between 1987 and 1994.
Unlike the action-oriented vivaciousness of Captain James T. Kirk on the original Star Trek (1966-1969), Picard was a philosopher who chewed on the moral complexities of life, duty, and the many unknowns of the universe that confronted his crew week after week. Picard’s thoughtful aura was helped along by actor Patrick Stewart, who spent most of his career walking in the shoes of some of William Shakespeare’s most complex characters. “I used to get asked, ‘In a fight between Kirk and Picard, who would win?’” Stewart told Smithsonian Magazine in 2014. “And my answer always was there wouldn’t be a fight because Picard would negotiate his way around it.”
These 10 quotes represent moments of Picard’s brilliance throughout the show’s seven seasons. While many of the Starfleet captain’s problems are firmly embedded in the 24th century — the personhood of super-advanced AI, the moral failings of a galaxy-wide government, and so very many time anomalies — his words speak to timeless truths about what it means to be human.
There can be no justice, so long as laws are absolute. Life itself is an exercise in exceptions. 
