From: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Television
Who said it?: Captain Jean-Luc Picard as Kamin
The story behind the quote: This week’s quote comes from Star Trek: The Next Generation. The show successfully introduced new fans to the sci-fi world where humans explored the final frontier. The series also gave us many memorable characters and, thankfully, lots of great quotes.
This week’s quote comes from landmark episode entitled “The Inner Light.” The Enterprise-D retrieves a deep space probe from an unknown civilization and, while examining it, Captain Jean-Luc Picard (played by Patrick Stewart) is zapped by it and falls unconscious. He then wakes up as a man named Kamin and relives the life of one of the citizens of the civilization who developed the space probe. In one memorable scene, Kamin’s scientist daughter, Meribor, wonders if she should marry the man she loves or should she just focus on trying to save their doomed planet. Picard, still as Kamin, delivers his advice using the quote.
Geek wisdom: While we can look to the past to learn from history and look to the future to show what we want to fulfill, never forget that the only thing we really control is the present. This makes the present actually the most important time of our lives. Make the most of the time we have right now.
