Star Trek: The Next Generation (TV Series)

A Matter of Time (1991)

Patrick Stewart: Captain Jean-Luc Picard

Quotes 

• Rasmussen : So, you've made your choice after all. And without my help.

  Captain Jean-Luc Picard : Oh, on the contrary, Professor. You were quite helpful.

  Rasmussen : How's that?

  Captain Jean-Luc Picard : By refusing to help me, you left me with the same choice I had to begin with, to try or not to try, to take a risk or to play it safe. And your arguments have reminded me how precious the right to choose is. Because I've never been one to play it safe.

• [Rasmussen has refused to help Picard decide on the right choice to save a people from certain death] 

  Captain Jean-Luc Picard : How can you be comfortable watching people die?

  Rasmussen : Erm, let me... put it to you this way: if I were to tell you that none of those people died, you'd easily conclude that you tried your solution and it succeeded. So, you'd confidently try again. No harm in that. But, what if I were to tell you they all died? What then? Obviously, you'd decide not to make the same mistake twice. Now, what if one of those people grew up...

  Captain Jean-Luc Picard : Yes, Professor, I know. What if one of those lives I save down there is a child who grows up to be the next Adolf Hitler, or Khan Singh? Every first-year philosophy student has been asked that question since the earliest wormholes were discovered.

• [despite his better judgment, Picard has asked Rasmussen about the best course of action to take in his Penthara IV dilemma] 

  Captain Jean-Luc Picard : There are twenty million lives down there. And you know what happened to them - what *will* happen to them.

  Rasmussen : So, it seems you have another dilemma; one that questions your convictions.

  Captain Jean-Luc Picard : Well, I've never been afraid of reevaluating my convictions, Professor; and now... well, I have twenty million reasons to do so.

• Captain Jean-Luc Picard : Of course, you know of the Prime Directive - which tells us that we have no right to interfere in the natural evolution of alien worlds. Now, I have sworn to uphold it. But, nevertheless, I have disregarded that directive - on more than one occasion - because I thought it was the right thing to do! Now, if you are holding on to some... temporal equivalent of that directive, then isn't it possible that... you have an occasion here to make an exception, to... to help me to choose, because it's the right thing to do?

• Captain Jean-Luc Picard : [after Rasmussen has been exposed as an impostor]  Trying to make *my* history unfold in a way other than it already has, eh, Professor?

  Rasmussen : [laughing sheepishly]  This was all a misunderstanding, Picard. Just... let me back in there. We'll forget the whole thing.

  Captain Jean-Luc Picard : Now, what possible incentive could anyone offer me to allow that?

• [last lines] 

  Captain Jean-Luc Picard : Oh, Professor - welcome to the 24th century.

• Captain Jean-Luc Picard : A person's life, their future, hinges on each of a thousand choices. Living is *making* choices! Now, you ask me to believe that if I make a choice other than the one that appears in your history books, then your past will be irrevocably altered. Well... you know, Professor, perhaps I don't give a damn about your past, because your past is my future, and as far as I'm concerned, it hasn't been written yet!

• [Worf has hailed a small vessel drifting in space] 

  Lieutenant Worf : That's odd...

  Commander William T. Riker : What's odd?

  Lieutenant Worf : We've received a response, but...

  Captain Jean-Luc Picard : Yes, Mr. Worf?

  Lieutenant Worf : They want you to move over, sir.

  Captain Jean-Luc Picard : Reply that the Enterprise isn't going anywhere, Lieutenant.

  Lieutenant Worf : Not the Enterprise, Captain. *You*.

• [Rasmussen has been revealed as an inventor from the 22nd century] 

  Captain Jean-Luc Picard : I'm sure that there are more than a few legitimate historians at Starfleet, who'll be quite eager to meet a human from your era.

• Captain Jean-Luc Picard : Let's take a look at Mr. Worf's distortion.