Babylon 5 Quotes

Delenn: There are moments when we all become someone else, something other than what we are. It takes only a moment. But we spend the rest of our lives looking back at that moment in shame.

TV Show: Babylon 5
Vir Cotto: One time, we were walking through the Alien sector, and we heard this beautiful singing coming from the Pak'Ma'Ra's quarters.
John Sheridan: They sing?
Stephen Franklin: There's nothing in the literature about that.
Vir: Apparently they only ever do it once a year, during their religious period. And we were listening to this singing and I saw a tear run down Londo's face, and I said, "We should go, this is upsetting you." But he said no, and we stayed. After the singing was over he turned to me and said, "There are 49 Gods in our Pantheon, Vir. To tell you the truth I've never really believed in any of them. But if just one of them exists…then God sings with that voice."

TV Show: Babylon 5
Sheridan: A toast. To…absent friends. In memory still bright.
Michael Garibaldi: G'Kar.
Vir: Londo.
Delenn: Lennier.
Franklin: Mar--
Susan Ivanova: Marcus.

TV Show: Babylon 5
[While Sheridan takes a last walk though the station.]
Zack Allan: So you hear 'em too, huh?
Sheridan: Zack. Ha ha! What the hell are you doing here? I thought you went back to Earth.
Allan: Yeah, I did. Got bored. Re-upped about six months ago. I figured I'd be here 'til they turn the lights out.[N]

TV Show: Babylon 5
Sheridan: [whispering] Well…look at that…the sun's coming up…

TV Show: Babylon 5
[last lines of the series]
Ivanova: Babylon 5 was the last of the Babylon stations. There would never be another. It changed the future…and it changed us. It taught us that we have to create the future, or others would do it for us. It showed us that we have to care for one another, because if we don't, who will? And that true strength sometimes comes from the most…unlikely places. Mostly though, I think it gave us hope—that there can always be new beginnings…even for people like us.
Ivanova: As for Delenn, every morning for as long as she lived, Delenn got up before dawn and watched the sun come up.
. . .
ISN newscaster: And now, for those of you that have been archiving this ISN Special Documentary, the people responsible.
[single frame stills of department-crews; then a shot of the whole crowd]
Funding for this program was made possible by grants from the Anla'shok Memorial Fund.

TV Show: Babylon 5
G'Kar: It is said that the future is always born in pain. The history of war is the history of pain. If we are wise what is born of that pain matures into the promise of a better world. Because we learn that we can no longer afford the mistakes of the past.

TV Show: Babylon 5
Londo Mollari: The humans, I think, knew they were doomed. But where another race would surrender to despair, the humans fought back with even greater strength. They made the Minbari fight for every inch of space. In my life, I have never seen anything like it. They would weep, they would pray, they would say goodbye to their loved ones and then throw themselves without fear or hesitation at the very face of death itself. Never surrendering. No one who saw them fighting against the inevitable could help but be moved to tears by their courage…their stubborn nobility. When they ran out of ships, they used guns. When they ran out of guns, they used knives and sticks and bare hands. They were magnificent. I only hope, that when it is my time, I may die with half as much dignity as I saw in their eyes at the end. They did this for two years. They never ran out of courage. But in the end…they ran out of time.

TV Show: Babylon 5
Delenn: What are you doing here?
Kosh: Creating the future.

Hologram Dukat: If you are seeing this message, it is because I am dead. I entrust this message to the Vorlons to give it to the right person at the right time. They have come to us in secret and they say that this time, we will need allies. A particular race so far unknown to us, called humans. It is their hope that we find these humans and bring them into the battle on our side. Finish what I have started. Finish it.

TV Show: Babylon 5
John Sheridan: Hey I have a message for you. I have a message. I know what is in Dukat's sacred place. omph!
Minbari Soldier: Silence!
John Sheridan: I know what is in Dukat's sacred place. omph!
Delenn: Stop! What is... in Dukat's sacred place?
John Sheridan: Entilzah. Entilzah!
Delenn: Let them go.
Minbari Soldier: Satah?
Delenn: I said, let them go. There has been enough blood spilled this day.

Dr. Franklin: Entilzah. What does that mean?
G'Kar: The future.

TV Show: Babylon 5
Delenn: I don't know what to do. Tell me what to do.

Kosh: The truth points to itself.
Delenn: What?
Kosh: The truth points to itself.
Delenn: I...I don't understand.
Kosh: You will. Now go.
Ulkesh: Go now. Before it is too late.

TV Show: Babylon 5
Earth President: This is…This is the president. I have just been informed that our midrange military bases at Beta Colony and Proxima 3 have fallen to the Minbari advance. We have lost contact with Io and must conclude that they too have fallen to an advanced force. Our military intelligence believes that Minbari intend to bypass Mars and hit Earth directly, and the attack may come at any time. We have continued to broadcast our surrender and a plea for mercy, and they have not responded. We therefore can only conclude that we stand at the twilight of the Human race. In order to buy more time for our evacuation transports to leave Earth, we ask for support of every ship capable of fighting, to take part in a defense of our homeworld. We will not lie to you. We do not believe survival is a possibility. We believe that anyone who joins this battle, will never come home again. But for every ten minutes we can delay the military advance, several hundred more civilians may have a chance to escape to neutral territory. Though Earth may fall, the Human race must have a chance to continue elsewhere. No greater sacrifice has ever been asked of a people, but I ask you now, to step forward one last time–one last battle to hold the line against the night!… May God…go with you all.

TV Show: Babylon 5
Londo Mollari: Why did the Minbari surrender at the Battle of the Line, on the very eve of victory? The answer would change the galaxy forever.

TV Show: Babylon 5
[The opening monologue to the episode, done in voiceover. This is the special edition version; for continuity purposes, two lines were removed from the original.]
Londo Mollari: I was there at the dawn of the Third Age of Mankind. It began in the Earth year 2257, with the founding of the last of the Babylon stations, located deep in neutral space. It was a port of call for refugees, smugglers, businessmen, diplomats and travelers from a hundred worlds. It could be a dangerous place, but we accepted the risk because Babylon 5 was our last, best hope for peace. Babylon 5 was a dream given form, a dream of a galaxy without war where species from different worlds could live side by side in mutual respect. Babylon 5 was the last of the Babylon stations. This is its story.

TV Show: Babylon 5
Jeffrey Sinclair: [to a man with a very attractive looking alien woman] I wouldn't. You know the rules about crossing species. Stick with the list.
Man: What are you, a bigot or something?
Sinclair: No. But obviously you've never met an Arnassian before. After they finish, they eat their mate.

TV Show: Babylon 5
Delenn: Do you not have files on the Vorlons?
Sinclair: Absolutely. Very large files. There's nothing in them, of course. How much do you have?
Delenn: More than you, it would seem. Naturally, it's all classified.
Sinclair: Naturally.
Delenn: [producing a data card] Here is a copy of everything I have. It may be of use. If anyone asks…say it fell from the sky. I imagine I will be quite astonished by this breach of security.

TV Show: Babylon 5
Londo: You're a security chief. Shouldn't you be out…securing something?
Michael Garibaldi: I am. I'm securing you.

TV Show: Babylon 5
Londo: I suppose there'll be a war now, hm? All that running around and shooting one another. You'd think that sooner or later, it would go out of fashion.

TV Show: Babylon 5
Londo: There was a time when this whole quadrant belonged to us! What are we now? Twelve worlds and a thousand monuments to past glories, living off memories and stories…selling trinkets! My god, man, we've become a tourist attraction! "See the great Centauri Republic, open nine to five…Earth time!"

TV Show: Babylon 5
[Sinclair is recalling his experience at the Battle of the Line.]
Sinclair: I was squad team leader when the call came in. We all knew it was a suicide mission. The Minbari had broken through and were closing in. Every ship we had left was ordered to circle Earth. We had to stop them, no matter what it cost. They came at us out of nowhere. We never had a chance. The sky was full of stars, and every star an exploding ship—one of ours. My team was blown out of the sky in less than a minute.
Carolyn Sykes: I'm sorry.
Sinclair: I managed to take out a fighter before they hit my stabilizers. I was losing power, I'd lost my team. And I figured if I was going to die, I'd take some of them with me. So I targeted one of their heavy cruisers. Hit my afterburners. I was going to ram them head-on. The last thing I remember is hurtling toward that cruiser. Filling my screen, big…my God, so big! Then…something…passed in front of my eyes. I guess I blacked out from the acceleration. When I came to twenty-four hours later, the cruiser was gone. I checked in. They told me the war was over. The Minbari had surrendered.
Carolyn Sykes: Because of the Line!
Sinclair: No, that's what I'm trying to tell you. We were beaten. We didn't stop them, they stopped themselves! And I wish to hell I knew why.

TV Show: Babylon 5
Minbari: [to Sinclair] There is a hole in your mind.

TV Show: Babylon 5
[after Sinclair narrowly escapes death]
Delenn: You're all right? Do you need anything?
Sinclair: Coffee. Two sugars. Cream. And aspirin. Lots and lots of aspirin!

TV Show: Babylon 5
Laurel Takashima: So, Doctor, just what did you see when you looked inside that (Vorlon's) suit?
Dr. Benjamin Kyle: There are moments in your life when everything crystallizes…and the whole world reshapes itself, right down to its component molecules. And everything changes. I have looked upon the face of a Vorlon, Laurel, and nothing is the same anymore!

TV Show: Babylon 5
Garibaldi: Think they'll ever find that transmitter you slipped G'Kar?
Sinclair: No. because there isn't one.
Garibaldi: There isn't? Wait—
Sinclair: I lied. I figured if there were a transmitter, sooner or later they'd find it and remove it. But if I just told them there was, they'd keep looking. Indefinitely.
Garibaldi: Commander, do you have any idea of the tests they'll put him through, the things they'll do to him trying to find a transmitter that's not there?
Sinclair: Yes.

TV Show: Babylon 5
Delenn: There is something I've been wondering. Why Babylon 5? If the prior four stations were lost or destroyed, why build another?
Sinclair: Plain old human stubbornness, I guess. When something we value is destroyed, we rebuild it. If it's destroyed again, we rebuild it again. And again, and again, and…again, until it stays. That, as our poet Tennyson once said, is the goal: "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
Delenn: A poet?
Sinclair: Someone who writes poems. [She gives him a confused look.] A poem. A story in meter or rhyme.
Delenn: [smiling] Ah! "There once was a man from Nantucket."
Sinclair: [chuckles] You've been talking to Garibaldi again, haven't you?
Delenn: Yes. How did you know?
Sinclair: [smiling] Oh, just a wild guess.

TV Show: Babylon 5
[last lines of the episode]
Laurel Takashima: This is Lieutenant Commander Laurel Takashima. Our docking bays stand ready to receive you. Babylon 5 is open for business!

TV Show: Babylon 5
[Delenn and Sheridan are in his office, discussing the massive and mysterious artifact]
Delenn: May I assume that this has nothing to do with you wanting to be the first to unlock whatever secrets this thing brings with it?
John Sheridan: Me? When have you ever known me to have a personal agenda?
Delenn: John, whenever something comes into our proximity that has to do with the unknown, your eyes light up like two tiny suns. And do you know what words these two tiny lights spell out?
Sheridan: What?
Delenn: Mine! Mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine!
Sheridan: Oh, now that is a lie!
Delenn: Minbari do not lie.
Sheridan: Well then it is slander.
Delenn: To be slander, it must be false. That's two down.
Sheridan: Well, then it's…it's damned inconvenient.
Delenn: The truth always is.
[she kisses him and leaves; he turns on a monitor and looks at the artifact]
Sheridan: Besides…it is mine.

TV Show: Babylon 5
Elizabeth Lochley: Dr. Wolfgang Pauli was a physicist during the late 20th century. Whenever he stepped inside the physics lab, something would go wrong or break down, usually a very expensive piece of equipment. Became kind of a joke with the other doctors, who called it the Pauli effect. According to the story, one day an extremely sensitive and expensive piece of equipment exploded, but he wasn't in the room. So for the first time, they had some proof that the Pauli effect wasn't real. Until they found out that at the exact moment the equipment exploded, he was on a train passing by right in front of the place.

TV Show: Babylon 5
[Garibaldi can't take his eyes off Captain Lochley's hologram]
Zack Allen: Hey!
Michael Garibaldi: What? What am I supposed to do, blind myself here? All right, fine, I'm as offended as you are. But I can see why a lot of guys would rent this particular image.
Jacob Mayhew: Actually, it was mainly women.

TV Show: Babylon 5
Soul Hunter: Faith is good. But sometimes faith is blind.

TV Show: Babylon 5