Top 50 Quotes From President Laura Roslin

Commander: Politics. As exciting as war. Definitely as dangerous.
President: Though in war, you only get killed once. In politics it can happen over and over.
Commander: You're still standing.
President: So are you.

President: Lee has no idea. He really has no idea.
Admiral: Have you anything I've said?
President: There are pragmatic realities he refuses to face.
Admiral: Well, that's a problem of course; he saying what he thinks is right.
President: Well yeah, he's Lee. Thing is, it probably is the right thing. But sometimes the right thing is a luxury. And it can have profoundly dangerous consequences. And it's almost as if he doesn't want that to be true. Ok, I've got to stop this. I'm not supposed to get upset during treatment. Will you read the next chapter?
Admiral: I must warn you that I'm getting into the part I haven't read yet.
President: Oh dear, are you going to be able to continue?
Admiral: Chapter Seven. The raft was not as seaworthy as I'd hoped. The waves repeatedly threatened to swamp it. I wasn't afraid to die. I was afraid of the emptiness that I felt inside. I couldn't feel anything, and that's what scared me. You came into my thoughts; you filled them. It felt good.

President: Put him out the air lock.
Lt. Kara 'Starbuck' Thrace: What? You can't do that, not after he told you the truth.
President: Yes, I can, and I will. Lieutenant, look at me. You've lost perspective. During the time I've allowed him to remain alive and captive on this ship, he has caused our entire fleet to spread out defenseless. He puts insidious ideas in our minds, more lethal than any warhead. He creates fear, but you're right. He's a machine, and you don't keep a deadly machine around when it kills your people and threatens your future. You get rid of it.

Captain: Baltar just confirmed it. The planet was nuked about 2,000 years ago.
D'Anna: Squares with what our teams have been finding all over the planet.
President: It's perfect. We traded one nuked civilization for another.

President: Commander Adama has no idea where Earth is. He never did. He made it up in order to give people hope.
Lt. Kara 'Starbuck' Thrace: You're lying.
President: Go ask him.
Lt. Kara 'Starbuck' Thrace: I will.

President: [volunteering for the mission despite being barely able to walk] You didn't think you were gonna to take off without me Admiral, did you?

President: [trying to convince an unsympathetic Baltar to let her use his wireless to make a fleet wide broadcast] The thing is that I never really believed in your conversion, so I was counting on your well-honed sense of self-preservation.
Dr. Gaius Baltar: I'm so sick of your insinuations. I recall your sudden allegiance to the priestess Elshoa and the Scrolls of Pythia the last time your political fortunes were in doubt. Tell me, how is that working for you now?
President: If it makes you happy, maybe we're both frauds and this is our last chance to atone.

President: Reality is that the Cylon Raider has been successfully jump-tested. Reality is that Cylon technology obviously outstrips our own. And reality is there is a good chance the Raider can jump all the way back to Caprica and retrieve that arrow and find our way to Earth. The real Earth.
Commander: The Raider's a military asset. I won't use it to go chasing some mythical arrow. I'm sorry.

President: Mr. Zarek. Oh, don't worry, I won't be kissing you today.
Tom: That's a shame. I shaved very closely in anticipation of being smacked by you.

President: [about Commander Adama] Maybe if he's more comfortable he'll be a little easier to deal with.
Billy: That's smart.
President: No, it's not smart. It's politics.

Elosha: Three thousand six hundred years ago, Pythia wrote about the exile and the rebirth of the human race. And the Lords anointed a leader to guide the caravan of the heavens to their new homeland. And unto the leader they gave a vision of serpents, numbering two and ten as a sign of things to come.
President: Pythia wrote that?
Elosha: She also wrote that the new leader suffered a wasting disease and would not live to enter the new land. But you're not dying.
[pause]
Elosha: Are you?

President: The spirit of the law requires something more here than summary executions.
Admiral: ...Is this what the two of you have been doing for the past six months? Debating the finer points of Colonial law? Well, guess what, we're at *war*! And we don't have the luxury of academic debate over these issues.

Tom: [speaking on the wireless] This is Tom Zarek, President of the Twelve Colonies. It's over, Laura. Saul Tigh was killed attempting to escape. Bill Adama was tried and found guilty of his crimes. A firing squad executed him this morning. It's done, Laura. You need to think about the people of this fleet now, and surrender.
President: No. Not now. Not ever. Do you hear me? I will use every cannon, every bomb, every bullet, every weapon I have down to my own eyeteeth to end you. I swear it! I'm coming for all of you!

Commander: [after being reunited on Kobol, the President and the Commander sit down by a campfire to talk] You interfered with a military mission and you broke your word to me.
President: It's the second part that really bothers you, isn't it?
Commander: Laura, I forgive you.
President: Thank you Bill. I didn't ask for your forgiveness.
Commander: Well, you have it anyway.
President: Lt. Thrace says there are survivors on the Colonies. There are people fighting against the Cylons everyday. They are fighting for their homes, their future.
Commander: I see.
President: It doesn't give you pause? Maybe your impulse the day the Cylons attacked was right. Maybe we should have stayed and fought for our homes. Maybe the President of the Colonies should have stayed and fought with her people.
Commander: I didn't come here for this. I didn't come here to lay blame or to catalogue our mistakes. We made a decision to leave the Colonies after the attack. We made the decision. It was the right one then and it's the right one now. Because every moment of every day since then is a gift.
President: From the gods.
Commander: No, from you, for convincing me that I should go. I would be dead. My son would be dead. Whatever else the costs, I won't second guess that outcome.
Commander: [after a pause, Roslin and Adama look over and see Starbuck and Apollo happily chatting near another fire] I think it's time to go find this... tomb of yours.
[He picks up a copy of the holy scriptures and hands it to Roslin, she takes it and smiles warmly at him]

President: [Talking with Dr.Cottle about the state of her health. The normally gruff Cottle is on the verge of choking up] Don't spoil your image, just light a cigarette and go and grumble.

President: [interrogating Baltar] This is Devlin and Mary Ann McCallister and their son and daughter. This is a family of four that was gunned down in their own home on suspicion of harboring insurgents. Just wondering if you recognize even one of these faces, did any image get through to you on the rare occasion that you ventured out, from behind your sandbags and your razor wires TO SEE WHAT WAS HAPPENING TO YOUR PEOPLE? *YOUR* PEOPLE!

President: Oh, my gods... it's Ellen Tigh.
Lt. Brendan 'Hot Dog' Constanza: How many dead chicks are out there?

President: [Her last words, spoken while riding a Raptor flying over Earth, looking at the various wildlife on the planet] So much life...

Emily: If he's the one and true God, he belongs to all of us. Otherwise he's not much of a god is he?
President: Exactly. He isn't much of a god... he's a fantasy.
Emily: Oh, Laura. And the Lords of Kobol are real? Reigning from a metaphysical mountaintop in those silly outfits? Zeus? Handing out fates out of an urn like they were lottery tickets? "You're gonna work on a Tillium ship. You're gonna be an Admiral. Your family's gonna be evaporated in the attack on the colonies... but you'll survive for three more years in a moldy compartment on a freighter until your body starts to eat itself up alive." Those are the gods that you worship? Capricious? Vindictive?
President: But they're not meant to be taken literally. They're metaphors, Emily.
Emily: I don't need metaphors. I need answers.
President: You're like my mother. She wasn't satisfied with metaphors either. She was convinced that Aphrodite herself was gonna swoop her away when she died. And she believed it even after the Doloxan and the radiation failed to stop her cancer. She was a teacher! She was... oh, she was something to behold. And the head of a classroom. And her students loved her. They'd walk through fire for her and then they see this woman who seemed so eternal. She withered away and I find myself having to change her diaper because she couldn't even - At the moment she died there was no gleaming fields of Elysium stretched out before her. There was this dark, black abyss. And she was terrified. She was so scared. I'm sorry.
Emily: Laura. Laura, you were terrified. You saw only darkness. You can't possibly know what your mother experienced. You're still searching...

President: I won't compromise the success of this operation or the safety of this fleet to indulge the neediness of 12 perpetually unhappy representatives. I can't.

Laura: [after tackling Tom to avoid the gunfire] Are you all right, Tom?
Tom: Yeah. It's been a while since I've had a woman throw me to the ground. Not quite as much fun as I remember.

[the President is addressing a meeting of the Quorum with Admiral Adama and other members of the military behind her]
President: I am here because I want to tell you face to face that I believe in this mission and what it means for our future. I'm here to profess my trust in our new allies. I'm here to ask you to listen. I'm here to ask for your support.
President: [to the marines at the door] Bring her in.
[the Six that's the leader of the rebel Cylons walks in amidst a sea of hostile faces. She comes and stands beside the President]
Number: In our civil war, we've seen death. We've watched our people die. Gone forever. As terrible as it was beyond the reach of the Resurrection ships, something began to change. We could feel a sense of time, as if each moment held its own significance. We began to realize that for our existence to hold any value, it must end. To live meaningful lives, we must die and not return. The one human flaw that you spend your lifetimes distressing over... Mortality is the one thing... Well, it's the one thing that makes you whole.
[Looking at Starbuck who's standing at the back in front of the door]
Number: I believe it was no accident that we were found by Kara Thrace. It was destiny. She asked me to leave my people, and I accepted. No matter what the sacrifice, even if it should mean my death...
[Trance-like fade to memories of the Hybrid speaking to Starbuck]
The: Thus shall it come to pass. The dying leader shall know the truth of the opera house. You are the harbinger of death, Kara Thrace.
[Suddenly we are back at the meeting with Starbuck looking dazed and glancing toward the President]
Number: Our destiny. Our future. Begins here. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak.
Admiral: Take her out.

President: [to Commander Adama, who is concerned about Ellen's identity] You actually think that woman is a Cylon?
Captain: Well, if she's not, then we're all in a lot of trouble.

Doctor: What are you suggesting?
President: I'm not suggesting anything Doctor. If I want to throw a baby out an airlock, I'll do it.

President: [addressing the fleet on the wireless during the mutiny] Women and men of the fleet. This is your president. We have come to a crossroads in our long and painful journey. Of all the decisions that I have had to make since assuming the presidency, none was more frightening or more difficult than agreeing to this alliance with the Cylons. But we have come to a crossroads in our long and painful journey. Cylons and humans have been at war for generations; we know nothing else. And we have been locked in a struggle that has seen both sides suffer unspeakable loss. But with our supplies running low and our options limited, our former enemies may represent our last, perhaps our only hope. To those in the fleet and in Galactica who would reject this alliance, I am asking you. No, I am begging you to reconsider and place your trust back in those who have brought you this far, and to reject those traitors who would use your fear of the Cylons to destroy Colonial civilization a...
[transmission is cut off]

President: Colonel Tigh was right. Rioting broke out on a cruise ship when they reduced water rations. We need to demonstrate an ability to maintain order. We need to do it now.
Commander: We don't have extra manpower for fleet security.
President: You have the only armed, disciplined force available.
Commander: Yeah, but I'm not going to be your policeman. There's a reason why you separate military and the police. One fights the enemy of the state. The other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people.
President: I appreciate the complexity of the issue and I won't let that happen.
Commander: I'll send troops to the cruise ship.
President: Commander, I won't let that happen.

Laura: Thank you all for, once again, entrusting me with this higher office of civil service. Today is a new beginning for all of us. We share a unique destiny, but our future is ours to shape and our past cannot be forgotten. A new day requires new thinking, and while I had intended on using this occasion as an opportunity to announce the formation of a special prosecutor's office charged with investigating acts of collaboration with the enemy; I have decided instead that a different gesture is called for on this, the first day of my next term as your president. We all feel the need for justice, and we all feel the need for vengeance, and telling the difference between the two can be difficult at times. We are all victims of the Cylons, and none of us can be impartial. I certainly can't. So today I am forming a commission on truth and reconciliation to hear our stories and record them for posterity. There will be no prosecutions. I am issuing a general pardon for every human being in this fleet. This will not be a popular move today, but I truly believe that is the only way for us to move forward in strength in the spirit of healing and reconciliation. I thank you for your continued patience and courage. Good day.

Number: Our ship can heal itself. But most of our Raiderswere destroyed in the ambush. We're asking for you help here. We can't do it alone.
President: What could possibly motivate us to trust you now? What have you got?
Lt. Sharon 'Athena' Agathon: The boxing facility resides within the Cylon Resurrection Hub. This hub controls the functions of every Resurrection ship in existence.
Lt. Sharon 'Athena' Agathon: It protects itself by periodically jumping to a new set of coordinates and relaying them back to the Baseship.
Number: [Standing up] Madame President, you asked for a reason to help us. Vengeance. You destroy the Hub, Cylons lose their ability to download. All of us.
President: Why would you be willing to lose your ability to resurrect?
Number: We're rebels. We can't go back. What matters most to us is being with the Five. D'Anna will be able to identify them. We'll take you to the hub if you help us unbox D'Anna.

President: Doctor, did you conspire with her to subvert our defense system?
Dr. Gaius Baltar: Conspiracy requires intent. I never intended... though she said deep down I'd always suspected. But I didn't know. How could I know? Did I conspire? Did I? No. No. I don't know. No. It wasn't my fault. It wasn't my fault! I am not responsible!

President: You are the right one, Lee. You have always been the right one. My only concern about you is that you're so hellbent on doing the *right* thing that you sometimes don't do the *smart* thing.
Lee: Well, I'll try to be smarter, and wronger.

[last lines]
Commander: How are you feeling?
President: I could sleep for about a year, but... but you, however, do not have that luxury, because you have a new job. Billy.
Billy: Took a little while to find that jeweler.
[hands a jewelry box to Roslin]
President: Thank you.
[pause]
President: Rumor has it that I know very little about military protocol, but I do believe... that... someone who commands more than one ship is called an Admiral.
[hands the jewelry box to Adama, who opens it]
President: Congratulations, Admiral Adama.
Commander: Thank you, Madam President. Thank you Billy. I, umm, never gave up hope, I just... stopped trying to get these a long time ago.
President: Just goes to show you, Bill. Never give up hope.
Commander: Same goes for you, Laura.

Commander: [President Roslin is bedridden, dying of cancer, and coughing profusely] What can I get you?
President: [sarcastically] A new body. Perhaps, one of those young Cylon models from the Resurrection Ship.
Commander: I can't see you as a blonde.
President: You'd be surprised.
[laughs]

Doctor: [Baltar has a two-way argument with Roslin and Number Six at the same time] Well, quite frankly, I don't give a flying frak whether you believe me or not, all right? Because I've had it, I am... I'm tired of being pushed and prodded around like I'm some kind of toy. I'm not your plaything!
Number: [simultaneously, in stereo] Plaything?
Doctor: I don't work for you and uh, quite frankly, I don't have to sit any more and take this kind of abuse from either of you!... Er,
[points at Billy]
Doctor: *you* either... either in *here*, either in there, wherever it is...

Doctor: You are obviously an intelligent, well-educated young woman. Would you mind explaining to me why you waited five years in between breast exams?
President: Yes, I would mind. It's none of your business. I was busy.
Doctor: [lighting a cigarette] And now here you are.
President: Yes, here we are. Would you mind?
[indicating her displeasure at his smoking]
Doctor: I do, actually.
[continues smoking]

President: You have Pegasus, he has Galactica. Two heavily-armed, very powerful warships. Now, I am sure that Pegasus would prevail in any fight-
Commander: [interrupting] -I wouldn't count on that-
President: -but certainly, there'd be heavy damage and you'd take significant casualties. So you can go out there and fight it out with Galactica or you can compromise. And those are the only two options on the table, period.
Admiral: How the two of you have survived this long, I will never know.

President: [talking about Baltar] He's an odd one, isn't he?
Billy: [in falsetto] Cuckoo...

Dr. Gaius Baltar: I gave the access codes to the Cylons. They wiped out most of humanity. Of course, I didn't know what I was doing at the time exactly, but that's what I did. And when I realized what I had done, the magnitude, in that moment I was saved. I was loved. By God. Looking back, I think I was rewarded.
President: Rewarded?
Dr. Gaius Baltar: Pythia talks about a flood. Wiped out most of humanity. Nobody blames the flood. The flood is a force of nature. Through the flood mankind is rejuvenated, born again. I was another flood, you see. I blamed myself. I blamed myself. But God made the man that made that choice. God made us all perfect. And in that thought, all my guilt flies away. Flies away like a bird.

Doctor: [Phone rings in Dr. Baltar's lab] Dr. Gaius Baltar, department of Cylon detection, how may I direct your call?
President: You're in a good mood.
Doctor: Madame president. I'm... I'm sorry, I was expecting someone else. I have started and stopped the test twice already now, so I'm running a little behind.
President: Doctor, I would like you to call me the moment Commander Adama's test is complete. Will you do that?
Doctor: Commander Adama cancelled his test a short while ago.
President: [Taken aback] Why?
Doctor: I dunno, um... he gave me another sample, and said it had priority. Yes, I probably shouldn't have mentioned that.
President: Whose? No, you probably shouldn't have.
Doctor: I'll just check. Some woman called Ellen. No surname. He dropped it off, and left. Is there a problem?
President: Dr. Baltar, I would like you to resume testing Commander Adama's blood sample, immediately, thank you.
[She hangs up the phone]

President: [as Billy replaces the number of survivors with a lower number] Okay...
[long pause]
President: next crisis.

Laura: [Scolding Zarek for his ordering secret trials/executions for collaborators] If they're guilty, they'll be tried by a jury of their peers.
Tom: They have a jury, but they don't get lawyers. They don't get to showboat for weeks and months on end. They don't get to blame the system. And the don't get lasting fame as martyrs or innocent people just in the wrong place at the wrong time. They just disappear. Now. In the great twilight between the long night of the occupation and the dawn of a new era, you come into office clean, without their blood on your hands.
Laura: Well, thank you, that's-uh, that's very poetic, however you have a problem, Mr. President. Everyone, by law, is entitled to a trial with representation. Everyone. It is not an option to be discarded at the president's whim.
Tom: You think by making the trials public that you'll find justice?
Laura: Yes, I do.
Tom: Come on, Laura. You're not that naive. Let me tell you what's gonna happen if those cases go to trial. It'll consume this fleet for months, maybe years. People will be lining up to testify against their neighbors. It'll be a circus, an entertainment for the mob, and you will be signing death warrents almost every day. Is that how you want to spend your next term, Laura? As Executioner-in-Chief?

Laura: We are talking about people blowing themselves up!
Colonel: You know, sometimes I think you got icewater in those veins and other times I think you're just a naive little schoolteacher. I've sent men on suicide missions in two different wars now and let me tell you something. It don't make a gods damn bit of difference whether they're riding in a Viper or walking out onto a parade ground. In the end, they're just as dead. So take your piety and your moralizing and your high minded principles and stick 'em someplace safe until you're off this rock and sitting in your nice comfy chair on Colonial One again.

Laura: Tom, you go that way. Head to the shipyard.
Tom: You're coming, right?
Laura: [points to Colonial One] My ship's up there.

Colonel: Are you going to order us to stop the search?
President: I came here to talk, not to give orders.
Colonel: It may take an order.
President: Why? Colonel Tigh, do I need to know something?
Colonel: It's gone beyond military needs. It's personal for the commander, for Lee too.
President: Because of Lieutenant Thrace.
Colonel: Because of her and because of Zak Adama.
President: The commander's dead son.
Colonel: It's complicated. Take about three weeks to explain.
President: We've got about three minutes. Talk fast.

Romo: I understand that you had a romantic relationship with my client.
Number: Gaius Baltar is a brilliant, gifted human being. In the time I've known him, he's made a sport out of mendacity and deception. He is narcissistic, feckless, self-centered, and vain. I'm the one who should have stabbed him.
President: Things are looking up.

President: [At Cally's funeral] I like this service.
Admiral: It's not for me, I'll tell you that.
President: I know, but I want you to know what I like.

President: [discussing Admiral Cain] I'm afraid this can only end one way... You've got to kill her.
Commander: What the hell are you talking about?
President: Like she said, let's cut through it. The two of you were willing to go to war today. Do you think she's going to step down from that? She's going to bide her time and hit you the first chance she gets. That's a given. I hate to lay this on you, Bill, but she is dangerous and the only thing that you can do is to hit her before she hits you.
Commander: I'm not an assassin.

President: Doctor, I need your help. But it's illegal, dangerous and in violation of your oath as an officer.
Dr. Cottle: You're a lousy salesman.

President: Felix Gaeta. Who would have thought? You probably knew him better then anyone back on New Caprica.
Dr. Gaius Baltar: Well, obviously his loyalties were divided even back then. Seems we both made rather bad choices when it comes to our Presidential aides-de-camp, wouldn't you say?
[making reference to Tory Foster, Roslin's Chief of Staff who was eventually revealed to be a Cylon. Roslin reluctantly nods her head in agreement with Baltar]

President: Let me see. Ruins? What ruins? This is an inhabited city. Look at the buildings.
Billy: Buildings?
President: Look.
Elosha: What did you see? Tell me, Laura.
President: A dome-like structure with six roads leading out of it like spokes. With something around it like columns, like a forum, like the forum on Caprica, actually.
Elosha: The forum in the opera house in the city of the gods on Kobol. This planet is Kobol.

Commander: [after the first flight of the Black Bird, Commander Adama, President Roslin and Colonel Tigh go to the hanger deck to congratulate Chief Tyrol and christen the Black Bird. All personal come to attention and salute as they walk in] As you were.
Commander: Chief Tyrol.
[President Roslin shakes his hand]
President: This is the Black Bird?
Chief: Yes ma'am. Madame President, this is an honor.
President: No, the honor is mine. It's remarkable.
Chief: [as all crewmembers that helped build the Black Bird sign their signatures onto it] Just a ship ma'am.
President: Oh, you are much too modest. After what we've been through... it would be very easy to give up, to lose hope, but not here, not today. This is more than a ship, Chief. This is an act of faith. It is proof... that despite all we've lost... we keep trying... and we will get through this, all of us, together. I promise.
Chief: [Picks up a bottle of champagne] Commander
[hands the bottle to Adama]
Chief: Uh, Madame President. This was uh... supposed to be a surprise but uh... well.
President: [Chief Tyrol removes the colonial flag from the nose of the Black Bird revealing that the name "Laura" has been given to it. President Roslin stands silent and fights to hold back tears, she finally clears her throat] Thank you.
Commander: [Adama gives Roslin the bottles of champagne] If you'll do us the honors... Madame President.
President: Oh, of course!
[Roslin takes the bottle and prepares to smash it against the Black Bird, causing the Chief and the entire crowd to panic]
President: Kidding.
[Looks around to re-assure the amused crowd and an especially surprised Chief]