- Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: Oh, that's perfect.
- Hannah Bates: What?
- Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: If the answer to all of this is in a VISOR created for a blind man who never would have existed in your society. No offense intended.
- Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: So... guess if I had been conceived on your world, I wouldn't even be here now, would I?
- Hannah Bates: No.
- Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: No. I'd have been... terminated as a fertilized cell.
- Hannah Bates: It was the wish of our founders that no one have to suffer a life with disabilities.
- Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: Who gave them the right to decide whether or not I should be here, whether or not I might have something to contribute?
- Hannah Bates: I was born to be one of the best scientific minds of my generation, and in the past five days, I have encountered technology that I have barely imagined. I've got to ask myself, if we're so brilliant, how come *we* didn't invent any of these things?
- Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: Well, maybe necessity really is the mother of invention.
- Captain Jean-Luc Picard: They've given away their humanity with this... genetic manipulation. Many of the qualities that they breed out - the... the uncertainty, self-discovery, the unknown - these are many of the qualities that make life worth living. Well, at least to me.
- Hannah Bates: All of us in this colony have been living in the dark ages. It's like we're victims of a 200-year-old joke. Until you came, all we could see was to the wall of our biosphere. Suddenly, our eyes have been opened to the infinite possibilities.
- Commander William T. Riker: We've got a problem. Our core fragment is going to pass by Moab IV in six days.
- Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Isn't that exactly what we anticipated?
- Commander William T. Riker: We didn't anticipate there would be someone living there.
- Aaron Conor: We grow up knowing exactly what our society needs from us, what we are expected to do.
- Commander William T. Riker: That must take some of the fun out of it.
- Aaron Conor: Not at all. My entire psychological makeup tells me that I was born to lead. I am exactly what I would choose to be. Think of it another way: are there still people in your society who have not yet discovered who they really are or what they were meant to do with their lives? They may be in the wrong job, they may be writing bad poetry or, worse yet, they may be great poets working as laborers, never to be discovered. That does not happen here.
- Aaron Conor: I know what Hannah Bates is feeling. I've been feeling it as well. I've found your people intriguing, and stimulating, as she has. I've been every bit as curious about you as the next man - but I am not the next man. I am the leader of these people, and every genetic fiber of my being demands that I protect them; and, instead, I have betrayed them. I have allowed this to happen.
- [last lines]
- Captain Jean-Luc Picard: If ever we needed reminding of the importance of the Prime Directive, it is now.
- Commander William T. Riker: The Prime Directive doesn't apply. They're Human.
- Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Doesn't it? Our very presence may have damaged, even destroyed their way of life. Now, whether or not we agree with that way of life, whether they're Human or not, is irrelevant, Number One. We are responsible.
- Commander William T. Riker: We had to respond to the threat of the core fragment, didn't we?
- Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Of course we did, but in the end, we may have proved just as dangerous to that colony as any core fragment could ever have been.
- Martin Benbeck: Your presence here has already begun to affect the entire balance of our society.
- Aaron Conor: If we don't survive, the balance of our society won't mean a great deal, will it?
- Counselor Deanna Troi: I'd book my next vacation at your hotel, if you had one.
- Aaron Conor: Well, in that case, I shall have to have them build one.
- Aaron Conor: Your arrival created this problem. Your departure solves it.
- Captain Jean-Luc Picard: That is simplistic.
- [Hannah Bates claims to have detected a breach in the biosphere]
- Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: Hannah. My VISOR's positronic scan would've detected the leak. Its molecular pattern enhancer would've picked up even the smallest crack.
- Hannah Bates: The damn thing doesn't miss much, does it?
- Doctor Beverly Crusher: There must be something we can do to help.
- Captain Jean-Luc Picard: We may have done too much to help them already, Doctor.
- Lieutenant Worf: But we saved them from destruction.
- Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Did we?
- Aaron Conor: [citing a nursery rhyme as a metaphor for his society's situation] Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
- Aaron Conor, Counselor Deanna Troi: [together] All the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't put Humpty together again.
- [Hannah and a few other colonists have asked to be allowed to leave their planet, but are facing strong opposition from their leaders]
- Captain Jean-Luc Picard: [mediating] In five days, you've seen only the most superficial evidence of what life is like outside this biosphere.
- Hannah Bates: Would you ever choose to live aboard a ship in a bottle, Captain? You are in command of a starship. You live to explore the unknown. We ask for that same privilege.
- Aaron Conor: I replay each step in my mind, looking for the wrong turn, mistake in judgment. I can find only one; and, as hard as I try, I cannot regret even that one. In fact, I'm quite certain that, given the opportunity, I would choose to make the same mistake again. I can only wonder why, with all the hundreds of genetically compatible women, I would fall in love with you.
- Counselor Deanna Troi: Don't say that.
- Aaron Conor: Perhaps it's your imperfections which make you so unique. But I am in love with you, Deanna Troi, and I will always be.
- Martin Benbeck: This is in direct violation of the intentions of our founders, Aaron.
- Aaron Conor: I don't think they intended us to die, Martin.
- [Troi has confessed her fling with Conor to Picard]
- Counselor Deanna Troi: I should have walked away as soon as I saw what was happening.
- Captain Jean-Luc Picard: But you didn't, and that's human. We make mistakes. Genetic manipulation or not, nobody's perfect.
- Martin Benbeck: We have immeasurably extended the potential of humanity - physically, psychologically... We have evolved beyond... beyond...
- Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: Beyond us.
- Martin Benbeck: Frankly - yes. No one in this society would be blind, for example. No offense intended.