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Gene Roddenberry

American television screenwriter and producer (1921–1991)

Eugene Wesley Roddenberry (August 19, 1921 - October 24, 1991) was born in El Paso, Texas and spent his boyhood in Los Angeles. He is best remembered for creating the science fiction television series Star Trek and was one of the first people to be buried in space.

A man either lives life as it happens to him, meets it head-on and licks it, or he turns his back on it and starts to wither away.

Quotes

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The strength of a civilization is not measured by its ability to fight wars, but rather by its ability to prevent them.
  • Star Trek speaks to some basic human needs: that there is a tomorrow — it's not all going to be over with a big flash and a bomb; that the human race is improving; that we have things to be proud of as humans. No, ancient astronauts did not build the pyramids — human beings built them, because they're clever and they work hard. And Star Trek is about those things.
    • Interview (20 September 1988), included in Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 5, DVD 7, "Mission Logs: Year Five", "A Tribute to Gene Roddenberry", 0:26:09)
  • The glory of creation is in its infinite diversity.
    • As quoted in Draper's Book of Quotations for the Christian World (1992) by Edythe Draper
  • The strength of a civilization is not measured by its ability to fight wars, but rather by its ability to prevent them.
  • We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes.
    • As quoted in Can A Smart Person Believe in God? (2004) by Michael Guillen, Ch. 7 : Hope Springs Eternal, p. 90
  • I condemn false prophets, I condemn the effort to take away the power of rational decision, to drain people of their free will — and a hell of a lot of money in the bargain. Religions vary in their degree of idiocy, but I reject them all. For most people, religion is nothing more than a substitute for a malfunctioning brain.
    • As quoted in In His Name (2010) by E. Christopher Reyes, p. 39
  • I do not belong to any church, but I do consider myself a religious man...part of the creative and intelligence behind life. Therefore, if we are part of God than our lives are not brief meaningless things, but rather have a great importance and significance.
    • Ibdb p.61. as quoted in Alexander, 1994:423
  • I listened to the sermon, and I remember complete astonishment because what they were talking about were things that were just crazy. It was communion time, where you eat this wafer and are supposed to be eating the body of Christ and drinking his blood. My first impression was, "This is a bunch of cannibals they've put me down among!" For some time, I puzzled over this and puzzled over why they were saying these things, because the connection between what they were saying and reality was very tenuous. How the hell did Jesus become something to be eaten?
    I guess from that time it was clear to me that religion was largely nonsense--largely magical, superstitious things. In my own teen life, I just couldn't see any point in adopting something based on magic, which was obviously phony and superstitious.
    • The Humanist, Mar/Apr 1991
  • I think I’ve gone through quite an ordinary series of steps in life. I began as most children began, with God and Santa Claus and the tooth fairy and the Easter Bunny all being about the same thing. Then I went through the things that I think sensitive people go through, wrestling with the thoughts of Jesus—did he shit? Did he screw? I began to dare to believe that God wasn’t some white beard. I began to look upon the miseries of the human race and to think God was not as simple as my mother said. As nearly as I can concentrate on the question today, I believe I am God; certainly you are, I think we intelligent beings on this planet are all a piece of God, are becoming God. In some sort of cyclical non-time thing we have to become God, so that we can end up creating ourselves, so that we can be in the first place. ... My own feeling is that relation to God as a person is a petty, superstitious approach to the All, the infinite.
    • As quoted in God & (1975) by Terrance A. Sweeney
  • No one could know Serling, or view or read his work, without recognizing his deep affection for humanity, his sympathetically enthusiastic curiosity about us, and his determination to enlarge our horizons by giving us a better understanding of ourselves. He dreamed of much for us, and demanded much of himself, perhaps more than was possible for either in this time and place. But it is that quality of dreams and demands that makes the ones like Rod Serling rare ...and always irreplaceable.



Misattributed

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About

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He was a chiseler who wanted a cut of outside money his cast earned, demanded to be called 'master,' and prohibited poor Nimoy from using a company pencil. ~ William Shatner
  • He looked at me and said, "The difference between your agent and me is that your agent can't get you out of here at five o’clock on Friday and I can. And all it'll cost you is twenty percent".
    "Gene, I can't do that to this agent," I said. "He got me the job."
    And then he said, and I will never forget his exact words, "Well, you're just going to have to learn how to bow down and say master."
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