Points of Departure
"Well, the human body is an amazing thing. It can cure itself, or it can simply decide one day that the world is too painful to deal with and won't cooperate no matter how hard you try to heal it."
Franklin

"I learned a while ago that there's enough guilt in the world to go around without grabbing for more. Give yourself benefit of a doubt."
Ivanova to Sheridan

"It was an early earth president, Abraham Lincoln, who best described our situation. 'The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise to the occasion. We cannot escape history. We will be remembered in spite of ourselves. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor, to the last generation. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose the last best hope for Earth.'"
Sheridan

The Geometry of Shadows
"Well, actually, I believe there are currents in the Universe. Eddies and tides that pull us one way or the other. Some we have to fight, some we have to embrace. Unfortunately, the currents that we have to fight look exactly like the currents we have to embrace. The currents that we think are the one that's gonna make us stronger, they are the ones that are going to destroy us. And the ones that we think are going to destroy us, they are the ones that are going to make us stronger. "
Vir

"The Universe doesn't give you any points for doing things that are easy."
Sheridan to Garibaldi

"I do think there are some things we don't understand. If we'd be back in time a thousand years, trying to explain this place to people, they could only accept it in terms of magic."
"Then perhaps it is magic. The magic of the human heart, focused and made manifest by technology. Every day you here create greater miracles than a burning bush."
"Maybe, but God was there first and He didn't need solar batteries and a
fusion reactor to do it."
"Perhaps, perhaps not."
Sheridan and Elric

A Distant Star
"An old friend of mine once quoted me an ancient Egyptian blessing: 'God be between you and harm in all the empty places where you must walk.'"
Sheridan to the Zeta Squadron

"That's the hard part, isn't it? Sending young people out to die."
"But they saved others. At the right moment, they were in the right place, and knew what to do. As you did."
"What makes you think this is the right place for me?"
"The Universe puts us in places where we can learn. They are never easy places, but they are right. Wherever we are, it's the right place at the right time. Pain sometimes comes; it's part of the process of constantly being born."
"You sound like you've been doing some thinking about this on your own."
"Perhaps. We are both, I suppose, going through a transition. But the Universe knows what it is doing."
"I wish I had your faith in the Universe. I just don't... see it sometimes."
"Then I will tell you a great secret, Captain. Perhaps the greatest of all time. The molecules of your body are the same molecules that make up this station and the nebula outside, that burn inside the stars themselves. We are star stuff. We are the Universe made manifest, trying to figure itself out. As we have both learned, sometimes the Universe requires a change of perspective."
Sheridan and Delenn

The Long Dark
"And we still haven't outgrown violence?"
"No. It's gonna take a lot more than a hundred years to evolve a better human."
Mariah Cirrus (who had been in cryo for 100 years) and Franklin

Soul Mates
"We Minbari believe, as do some humans, that souls travel together. Some groups of souls are drawn one to the other in life, to relive good relationships from the past and, if possible, to make right the bad ones."
Delenn

A Race Through Dark Places
"We believe that no race can be truly intelligent without laughter."
Delenn to Sheridan

The Coming of Shadows
"It has occurred to me recently that I have never chosen anything. I was born into a role that had been prepared for me. I did everything I was asked to do, because it never occurred to me to choose otherwise. And now, at the end of my life, I wonder what might've been."
"That's why my father taught me to live each second as though it would be the last moment of my life. He said: 'If you love, love without reservation. If you fight, fight without fear.' He called it the way of the warrior."
"No regrets then?"
"A few. But just a few. You?"
"Oh, enough to fill a lifetime. So much has been lost, so much forgotten. So much pain, so much blood. And for what, I wonder. The past tempts us, the present confuses us, and the future frightens us. And our lives slip away, moment by moment, lost in that vast terrible in-between. But there is still time to cease that one last fragile moment. To choose something better, to make a difference, as you say. And I intend to do just that."
Emperor Turhan and Sheridan

GROPOS
"I'm a doctor. My duty is to heal."
"Then heal humans. Stephen, I know you are fascinated by these alien creatures, but they are a threat to humanity. And they always will be. Help your own kind."
"Life is life. Whether it's wrapped in skins, scales, or feathers. Now, if you respected these beings instead of constantly trying to murder them, you would appreciate that."
Franklin and his father

"We are all slaves to our histories. If there is to be a... bright future, we must learn to break those chains."
Delenn

"There's only one truth about war: People die. Killing is part of a soldier's job. We can't deny it. We can only live with it and hope the reasons for doing it are justified."
Sheridan

"A man who won't stand up for his own principles is not really a man at all."
General Richard Franklin

Acts of Sacrifice
"G'Kar, everyone in this room knows too well that the first casualty of war is always the truth."
Sheridan to G'Kar

"It is good to have friends, is it not, Mr. Garibaldi? Even if maybe... only for a little while?"
Londo to Garibaldi

Hunter, Prey
"Maybe somebody should've labeled the future: some assembly required."
Garibaldi to Franklin

There All the Honor Lies
"I never forget the feeling of helplessness. I never thought there could be anything worse than being all alone in the night."
"But there is. Being all alone in a crowd. You feel cut off from your people, from your government. You even begin to doubt yourself. I understand it so well, it cuts to my heart."
Sheridan and Delenn

And Now for a Word
"Why does any advanced civilization seek to destroy less advanced one? Because the land is strategically valuable, because there are resources that can be cultivated and exploited, but most of all, simply because they can."
G'Kar

"Humans share one unique quality. They build communities. If the Narns or the Centauri or any other race built a station like this, it would be used only by their own people, but everywhere humans go, they create communities out of diverse and sometimes hostile populations. It is a great gift and a terrible responsibility, one that cannot be abandoned."
Delenn

"The job of Babylon 5 is not to enforce the peace. It's to create the peace. And this place was built on the assumption that we could work out our problems and build a better future, and that, to me, is the key issue. See, in the last few years... we've stumbled. We stumbled at the death of the president, the war, and on and on. And when you stumble a lot, you... you start looking at your feet. We have to make people ... lift their eyes back to the horizon and see the line of ancestors behind us saying, 'Make my life have meaning.' And to our inheritors before us saying, 'Create the world we will live in.' I mean, we're not just holding jobs and having dinner. We are in the process of building the future. That's what Babylon 5 is all about. Only by making people understand that can we hope to create a better world for ourselves and our posterity."
Sheridan

In the Shadow of Z'Ha'Dum
"When a patient starts to slip away... when he looks at you... and his eyes grab hold of you the way a drowning man grabs hold of anything to keep him from sinking... I mean, afraid... so afraid... and then, just at the last, it's as if they look past you to something else, and the look on their face, it's like nothing you can describe. And then... just as they look past you, the moment that they look past you, you can't help but meet their gaze and, just for an instant, you see God reflected in their eyes. I've seen a lot of reflected Gods today, Susan... and I'm wondering how we can keep believing in them when they've stopped believing in us."
Franklin

Confessions and Lamentations
"They're in pain, frightened, dying. Minbari are taught that at such a time, the afflicted should be ministered to, comforted."
"They're not your own people, Delenn."
"I didn't know that similarity was required for the exercise of compassion. They are afraid. We wish to do what little we can."
Delenn and Sheridan about the dying Markab

"Don't look away, Captain. All life is transitory, a dream. We all come together in the same place, at the end of time. If I don't see you again here, I will see you, in a little while... in the place where no shadows fall."
Delenn to Sheridan before entering the isolation zone

"Everything to you was a problem to be solved, a test to be passed. But you know, Stephen, sometimes the test is not to find the answer. It's to see how you react when you realize there is no answer."
Lazarenn to Franklin

The Long, Twilight Struggle
"No dictator, no invader, can hold an imprisoned population by the force of arms forever. There is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom. Against that power governments, and tyrants, and armies can not stand. The Centauri learned this lesson once. We will teach it to them again. Though it take a thousand years, we will be free."
G'Kar

Comes the Inquisitor
"We all have a destiny."
"Do we? How magnanimous of you."
"Sometimes we do not see it, because we have been taught to believe that we are not important."
Delenn and Sebastian the Inquisitor

"Why are you here, now, in this place, in this life?"
"I was meant to be here."
"Meant?"
"Yes."
"By whom?"
"I do not know."
"Then how can you be sure?"
"I don't know."
"No, you don't."
"Does it matter?
"What do you mean?"
"If I believe I'm here now for a reason..."
"And if the world says otherwise?"
"Then the world is wrong!"
"And Delenn is right? Perhaps the world is right and Delenn is wrong? Have you ever considered that? Have you?"
"Yes. Sometimes."
"Then there may yet be hope for you."
Sebastian and Delenn

"I'm sorry."
[G'Kar cuts his hand, blood is dripping from it]
"Dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead... How do you apologise to them."
"I can't."
"Then I cannot forgive"
Vir and G'Kar about all the Narn the Centauri have killed

"Do you know what your problem is, Delenn? You are a piece of the machine that thinks it is the whole of the machine. The flute that believes itself a symphony. You have malfunctioned. Admit it, and you'll feel better. Your only destiny is to be a nail that is hammered down. Bang, bang, bang."
Sebastian to Delenn

"You are linked at the hip. Just as bad as she is. But you are not just a dreamer, you are a soldier. How far are you prepared to go? How much are you prepared to risk? How many people are you prepared to sacrifice for victory? Are you willing to die friendless, alone, deserted by everyone? Because that's what may be required of you in the war that is to come."
Sebastian to Sheridan

"This body is only a shell. You can not touch me. You can not harm me. I'm not afraid."
Delenn

"How do you know the chosen ones? No greater love hath a man than he lay down his life for his friend. Not for millions, not for glory, not for fame... for one person. In the dark, where no one will ever know or see."
Sebastian

The Fall of Night
"We came to this place, because Babylon 5 was out last, best hope for peace. By the end of 2259, we knew that it had failed. But in so doing it became something greater. As the war expanded, it became our last, best hope for victory, because sometimes peace is another word for surrender, and because secrets have a way of getting out."
Ivanova

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