Star Trek: Voyager (TV Series)

Concerning Flight (1997)

John Rhys-Davies: Leonardo da Vinci

Photos 

Quotes 

• [da Vinci is baffled by the "magic" technology he has encountered] 

  Captain Kathryn Janeway : Let me ask you something. If you were something other than a human being, if you were a different kind of animal... If you were a small bird, a sparrow, what would your world be like?

  Leonardo da Vinci : I should make my home in a tree, in the branch of an elm. I should hunt insects for food, straw for my nest, and in springtime I should sing for a companion.

  Captain Kathryn Janeway : And you would know nothing of the politics of Florence, the cutting of marble, or mathematics.

  Leonardo da Vinci : Of course not.

  Captain Kathryn Janeway : But why not?

  Leonardo da Vinci : My mind would be too small.

  Captain Kathryn Janeway : As a sparrow, your mind would be too small, even with the best of teachers?

  Leonardo da Vinci : If Aristotle himself were to perch on my branch and lecture till he... fell off from exhaustion... still the limits of my mind would prevent me from understanding.

  Captain Kathryn Janeway : And as a man, can you accept that there may be certain realities beyond the limits of your comprehension?

  Leonardo da Vinci : If I could not accept that... then I would be a fool.

• Leonardo da Vinci : Where exactly are you from?

  Tuvok : Scandinavia.

• Leonardo da Vinci : All my life I have wanted to fly. Perhaps my failure to do so has... caused my heart to remain in flight, leaping from one thing to another, never satisfied, never complete.

  Captain Kathryn Janeway : And now that you've actually flown?

  Leonardo da Vinci : Now, who knows what I cannot accomplish.

• Leonardo da Vinci : [on Janeway's bleeping tricorder]  Your compass is speaking to you!

• Leonardo da Vinci : Machines that fly through the air! Lightning flung from one's hands! Mechanical women who live in boxes! These things I have seen!

• Leonardo da Vinci : I will not leave this new world!

  Captain Kathryn Janeway : Your new world is a prison! You're under his control!

  [points at the unconscious Tau] 

  Leonardo da Vinci : When are we not in prison? Hm? When are our lives free from the influence of those who have more power than us? Hm? If this new world is a cage, then it is a cage of gold - of marvels, of opportunities!

• Captain Kathryn Janeway : Leonardo, whether you want to admit it or not, they do need you back home. In Florence, Milan, Avignon, they need your genius, they need your heart - and right now I need you, too, so come on.

  Leonardo da Vinci : I will not go... for Florence or Milan or Avignon... but for you, Caterina... for you I will go.

• Leonardo da Vinci : Well, this, uh, fascinating conversation...

  [he finishes his drink] 

  Leonardo da Vinci : ...has left me as dry as Vulcan.

  Tuvok : Vulcan?

  Leonardo da Vinci : An island off Sicily. Have you been there?

  Tuvok : No.

  Leonardo da Vinci : Pity.

• Captain Janeway : I'd like to meet this patron of yours.

  Leonardo da Vinci : And so you shall this very evening, but I caution you - he is as ruthless as a Borgia.

• Leonardo da Vinci : [examining Tuvok]  Curious ears.

  Captain Kathryn Janeway : My traveling companion, Tuvok.

  Leonardo da Vinci : Ah, what the old philosophers say is true. Monstrous and wonderful are the peoples of undiscovered lands.

• Leonardo da Vinci : Earthquakes... and idiots. Florence be damned.

• Leonardo da Vinci : [stranded on an alien planet]  Welcome to America!

• Leonardo da Vinci : I cannot believe it. I will not believe it! My mind cannot accept the evidence of my eyes!