Firefly was a really good show that was ahead of its time when it was still running almost two decades ago. It did not really have the opportunity to run long as it was a short-lived series that only had one season. Nevertheless, Firefly is still full of great quotes that are both memorable and good enough to live by.
You can’t take the sky from me.
Whatever happens, the one thing we will always have is the sky. People may take our freedom and everything we have in our lives, but the sky will always be constant. It is something we look up to when we are searching for hope and when we are trying to see the good in all of the bad things today.
First rule of battle, little one … don’t ever let them know where you are.
The element of surprise is always an advantage in any kind of battle you are fighting. Never let people know your position as you will be giving out the biggest advantage you have against them in your battle.
Mercy is the mark of a great man.
They say that fearless men are not afraid of taking lives. However, it is the man who knows mercy that is truly great because he knows when it is right and prudent to not take lives and give others the chance to redeem themselves.
We’ve done the impossible, and that makes us mighty.
There is nothing in the world that we can consider as impossible. And if we are able to actually do what was seen as impossible, then we have all the might in the world to make impossible things possible.
That girl will rain destruction down on you and your ship. She is an albatross, Captain.
Way I remember it, albatross was a ship’s good luck, ’til some idiot killed it. Yes, I’ve read a poem. Try not to faint.
The albatross might have been seen as a good luck charm for ships before, but always remember that the situation can always go the other way around when you don’t treat things and people right. Now, the albatross is a symbol of bad luck or ships.
We’re not gonna die. We can’t die, Bendis. You know why? Because we are so very pretty. We are just too pretty for God to let us die.
Funny as it seems, we tend to forget about how the most beautiful things in the world are always the most protected to the point that even God won’t let them die off so easily. However, as we all know, God and time will eventually take even the most beautiful creatures in the world.
It’s a real burden being right so often.
Being the one who always makes the most sense in the group can be quite the burden. That is because being right all the time carries with it dozens of responsibilities that most people simply cannot handle. One of them is staying right all the time, even when you yourself believe that you are in a situation where you can actually go wrong.
Ah, curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!
Things may happen so suddenly, but the one thing you can be sure of is that even the most sudden things are inevitable. So long as you did your preparation right beforehand, what seems to be sudden but inevitable won’t be as surprising as it was before.
Sweetie, we’re crooks. If everything were right, we’d be in jail.
The sad truth is that the world does not always work the way you want it too. Even the worst of people, as well as the bad ones, are still out there running free. Had the world been right, they would have been served justice.
Kaylee: You shouldn’t be so rude to him.
Jayne: Why? Cause he’s all rich and fanciable?
Society has a way of showing us how unfair the world can be. People believe that it’s okay to be rude to those who are at the same level as you are or beneath you, but you are taught to respect those who are at an advantage socially. But, at the end of it all, we should all be treated equally by society.
Ten percent of nothin’ is … let me do the math here … nothin’ into nothin’ … carry the nothin’…
Even when you get ten percent of something, it all amounts to nothing if there was nothing there in the first place.
Tracey: When you can’t run, you crawl. And when you can’t crawl, when you can’t do that …
Zoe: … you find someone to carry you.
There will always be times when the only thing you can do is to move forward regardless of how you do it. You may want to run if you can, but you should also crawl if that is the only way for you to move forward. And if you feel like you can do neither, then there is always that friend who could help carry the load for you.
You know what the chain of command is? It’s the chain I go get and beat you with until you understand who’s in rutin charge here.
This is not exactly what chain of command means, but it works something like that in the worst cases. Sometimes, the only way for you to make someone understand who is in charge is to actually use the chain against him.
Someone ever tries to kill you; you try to kill ’em right back!
If someone tries to attack you, the only way for you to survive is to attack them back regardless of how you would do it.
Also? I can kill you with my brain.
Remember that physical violence is not the only way for you to retaliate when someone tries to attack you. In most cases, using your brain might be the best way for you to retaliate against aggression.
Ain’t all buttons and charts, little albatross. Know what the first rule of flying is? Well, I s’pose you do, since you already know what I’m ’bout to say.
I do. But I like to hear you say it.
Love. Can know all the math in the ‘verse but take a boat in the air that you don’t love? She’ll shake you off just as sure as a turn in the world. Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down…tell you she’s hurtin’ ‘fore she keens…makes her a home.
This applies to anything. Knowledge can only do so much when you are trying to accomplish something. But loving what you are doing is what really keeps the ship afloat. All the knowledge in the world won’t be able to help you if you actually do not love what you are doing.
Captain, I think you have a problem with your brain being missing.
What makes this a memorable quote is that it actually is very relatable in the sense that we have all been in situations wherein someone in command acts like he should not have been in command in the first place.
If we ruled the world, I guarantee you they would never have canceled Firefly.
Yes, Firefly was canceled. We are still trying to live with that fact. But if it were the fans in charge of the world, it would never have been canceled after one season. Who knows? Maybe it would still be running up to this day.
We didn’t fly 86 million miles to track down a box of Band-Aids, Colonel.
We did not live through this life long enough just to waste it on some trivial matters. Live life to the fullest and make sure that every journey you take is worth it.
The important thing is the spices. A man can live on packaged food from here ’til Judgment Day if he’s got enough rosemary.
Variety is the spice of life. No matter how plain your life may be, you can actually spice it up by adding a bit of variety to it. A little variety can go a long way into making your situation a lot more interesting than it originally was.
That sounds like the Alliance. Unite all the planets under one rule so that everybody can be interfered with or ignored equally.
This might be a sad truth. Even if we were to unite all under one banner, there is still a good chance that there will still be people who will end up getting oppressed by society.
Malcolm: If anyone gets nosy, just …you know … shoot ’em.
Zoe: Shoot ’em?
Malcolm: Politely.
Regardless of the situation you are in, always try to be polite in your own little way, even if it involves shooting someone.
It’s my estimation that every man ever got a statue made of him was one kind of sumbitch or another.
No one is perfect. Even those who have statues of themselves for doing something great may have done things he was not too proud of. At worst, he would have been the worst kind of person imaginable. After all, who is selfish enough to have a statue of himself made?
I cannot abide useless people.
If someone is useless in a certain situation, then there is no reason for you to abide by him. After all, he will only end up becoming a burden to you and the group when the problems get too big for him to handle.
I’ve been under fire before. Well … I’ve been in a fire. Actually, I was fired. I can handle myself.
Those who have been in the roughest of times know how to handle themselves. Look for people who have experienced being under fire because those are the ones strong enough to have survived the flames. They can handle any fire before them.
Next time you want to stab me in the back, have the guts to do it to my face.
Never try to betray someone’s trust behind his or her back. That is the worst kind of betrayal imaginable. And if you must part ways with someone due to philosophical differences, be nice and courteous enough to tell the person face to face instead of doing it behind the back.
Man walks down the street in a hat like that, you know he’s not afraid of anything …
People who are not afraid of walking in the street looking stupid or downright silly are the bravest ones. Those are the people you can expect to be able to be brave enough to face anything as they are used to getting ridiculed by the people around them.
Can we maybe vote on the whole murdering people issue?
No single person gets to choose who gets killed and who does not deserve to live. And if you must decide on that, you will find that everyone else around you will vote against it.
Wash: Psychic, though? That sounds like something out of science fiction.
Zoe: We live in a spaceship, dear.
If you are in a situation where you cannot believe what is happening, look around you, and try to assess whether or not things around you are actually impossible to believe. After all, science fiction is just a science fact that is yet to be made real by technology.
Well, my time of not taking you seriously is coming to a middle.
Everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt. Someone who you did not trust in the past can actually gradually earn your trust as long as he proves himself day by day. Of course, it has to be something that happens over time and not a one-time event where your trust level on that person goes from zero to a hundred in an instant.
Book: Whatever horror he witnessed, whatever acts of barbarism it was done by men, nothing more.
Jayne: Reaver’s ain’t men.
Book: Of course, they are. Too long removed from civilization perhaps, but men. And, I believe there’s a power greater than men. A power that heals.
Malcolm: Reavers might take issue with that philosophy…if they had a philosophy…and they weren’t too busy gnawing on your insides. Jayne’s right. Reavers ain’t men. Or they forgot how to be. Come to just nothin’. They got out to the edge of the galaxy, to that place of nothin’, and that’s what they became.
Can those who have lost their sense of humanity still be called humans? After all, our physical appearance and our biology are not what determines our humanity.
Well, we may not have parted on the best of terms. I realize certain words were exchanged. Also, certain… bullets.
The sad part about parting ways with someone who used to mean something to you is that it is not only hurtful words that were exchanged but also hurtful actions. Actions speak louder than words, and when an action is as hurtful as it gets, it might as well hit as hard as a bullet.
Zoe: Don’t think it’s a good spot, sir. She still has an advantage over us.
Malcolm: Everyone always does. That’s what makes us special.
There will be times when you will be placed in a situation wherein there is no advantageous spot for you. In the end, the only thing you could do is to make the most out of your situation and use any kind of a disadvantage to your advantage. That is what makes the resilient ones so special in the first place.
I ain’t sayin’ there’s any peace to be had, but on the off chance there is, those folks deserve a little of it.
In situations where there is almost no chance of a peaceful resolution, you should still try as hard as you can to resolve the issue, with both sides being at peace. Everyone in the world, no matter who they are or what they did, deserves even a bit of peace.
Gave up everything to free his sister from that place. Go from being a doctor on the central planets to hiding on the fringes of the system… Not many who would do that.
There are always things that are worth fighting for, even if it means giving up a comfortable life and living a difficult one instead. So long as the end goal is achieved, the price will always be worth everything you gave up.
I’ve been out of the abbey two days, I’ve beaten a lawman senseless, I’ve fallen in with criminals. I watched the captain shoot the man I swore to protect. And I’m not even sure if I think he was wrong.
Everyone goes through bad times, and everyone has done something shameful in the past. And there will be times when you are actually second-guessing whether or not you needed to do those things in the past or whether or not you were right in such situations.
Harken: Seems odd you’d name your ship after a battle you were on the wrong side of.
Malcolm: May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one.
Our battles are what actually defines us. Even though the battle might be a losing one, so long as you think you are on the right side, you will be fine. And you will be left with some of the best kinds of memories if you happen to get out of your battles alive and well.
They made him watch. He probably tried to turn away, and they wouldn’t let him. You call him a survivor? He’s not. A man comes up against that kind of will, the only way to deal with it, I suspect, is to become it.
Not all those who have been in the darkness were there purposely. There were those who were forced to be there and were made to watch the horrors lurking in the shadows. And if that man happens to come out of the darkness, the only way for him to survive is to become the darkness itself.
Oh, I think you might wanna reconsider that last part. See, I married me a powerful ugly creature.
Marriage really is not for everyone. The person you thought was a beautiful angel at first could end up becoming an ugly creature in the end. But that does not mean that the marriage should end up failing because you too have an ugly creature hiding underneath.
Badger: What were you in the war? That big war you failed to win? You were a sergeant, yeah? Sergeant Malcolm Reynolds … balls and bayonets brigade. Big, tough veteran. Now you got yourself a ship, and you’re a captain. Only I think you’re still a sergeant, see? Still a soldier. A man of honor in a den of thieves. Well, this is my gorramn den, and I don’t like the way you look down on me. I’m above you, better than! Businessman, see? Roots in the community. You’re just a scavenger.
Malcolm: Well, maybe I’m not a fancy gentleman like you, with your … very fine hat. But I do business. We’re here for business.
You have to live with what you have, no matter what you need to do. Nobody needs to go and live their lives in the fanciest way possible. As long as you are doing well and that you are making an honest living, that is enough for you to be proud of.
You’re welcome on my boat. God ain’t.
Sad as it may be, there are times when you no longer trust in God and that you are no longer willing to let Him into your life. Instead, the only people you can put your trust in are the ones around you. But do not forget that they too are personifications of God.
Badger: You think you’re better than other people.
Mal: Just the ones I’m better than.
Some people say that no one is better than any other person from an overall aspect. However, you can still be better than any given person in any given craft or skill so long as you can actually prove yourself to be better than them in that area or field.
Badger: The man’s taken an irrational dislike to me.
Jayne: What happened? He sees your face?
Maybe it is a universal truth that we all have people we do not like for no apparent reason other than the fact that we saw them. Must be hate at first sight, then?
Sleepiness is a weakness of character. Ask anyone.
Being sleepy is a normal biological reaction that we all experience. However, if you happen to be sleepy all the time, there might be something wrong. You might be sick, or you might not have rested well in the past few days. However, it might also mean that your character is weak and that you feel sleepy because of how you do not have the stomach and intestinal fortitude to handle certain problems.
My work’s illegal, but at least it’s honest.
It sounds ironic, doesn’t it? Well, there are illegal jobs in the world for one reason or another. But as long as you are doing honest work, that does not make it that bad, doesn’t it?
Mal: This is why we lost, you know. Superior numbers.
Zoe: Thanks for the re-enactment, sir.
Sounds like stating the obvious, doesn’t it? That is because it is. The hard truth at times is that the only reason you lost your battles is that you were outnumbered. After all, there is always strength in numbers. That as much is obvious.
I’ve been on the ship eight months now. I’m not certain I’ll ever actually know the captain.
No matter how long you have been with a person, time really is never the determining factor by which you base how much you know about him or her. At times, even a hundred years will not be enough to truly know a person inside and out. It might take some sort of special connection or bond for you to get to know that person and how he or she thinks.
It’s fun, being forced to the ass-end of the galaxy. To get to live on a piece of lèsè [garbage] wreck. And to eat molded protein. And to be bullied around by our pien juh duh jiou chiao ren [stubborn disciplinarian] of a captain. It’s fun.
Sounds sarcastic, doesn’t it? Maybe it is but that it still means something. You may be in a tough situation, but that does not mean that you cannot find anything fun or exciting in whatever kind of situation you are in.
You gave up everything you had to find me. And you found me broken.
Sometimes we tend to forget everything and anything just to keep on searching for that one thing we have been striving for our entire lives only to find out that it is not exactly what we had in mind when we first started looking for it.
Book: I am a Shepherd. Folks like a man of God.
Malcolm: No, they don’t. Men of God make everyone feel guilty and judged.
A man of God is still but a man. He is imperfect and prone to make mistakes. That is why there are men of God who judge you and make you feel guilty about being yourself. Trust not in a man of God but in God Himself.
You could always pray they make it back safely.
When you feel useless in any kind of situation and that you do not have anything to contribute, the only thing you can do is to pray and hope that everyone who has a role in the situation does well in what they are doing and are able to come home safe and sound.
How we treat our dead is part of what makes us different…than those did the slaughtering.
No one is ever innocent when it comes to the death of a person. However, by treating the dead well enough, you are perhaps better than those who made the killing. Respect the dead, and you may perhaps gain their respect as well.
Sheriff Bourne: You were truthful back in town. These are tough times. A man can get a job. He might not look too close at what that job is. But a man learns all the details of a situation like ours… well… then he has a choice.
Malcolm: I don’t believe he does.
In the most difficult of situations, the hardest choice you can take is probably the only choice available to you at that moment.
Patron: That girl is a witch.
Malcolm: Yeah, but she’s our witch.
Everyone has a bad side that others simply cannot accept. But if you love that person, the only thing you can do is to accept him or her for who he or she really is because what makes a person whole is his or her good and bad sides spliced together.
Like woman, I am a mystery.
For a lot of men in the world, the greatest mystery that is yet to be solved has always been a woman.
Every problem is an opportunity in disguise.
If you see a problem before you, do not panic or worry. It is merely an opportunity for you to rise up and be better. Solving the problem and getting yourself out of it will make you a better and stronger person with skills you thought you could never learn.
We’re not telling people what to think… we’re just trying to show them how.
We can never be in control of how a person thinks or acts. Instead, the only way for us to influence their actions is to show them that what we are doing is the right way.
The way it is is the way it is. We gotta deal with what’s in front of us.
In truth, we are not always in control of the situation we are in. But we have to deal with the problems facing us instead of trying to control the situation or folding to the troubles before us.
I’m no good with words. Don’t…don’t use ’em much myself.
There are countless of people around the world who are not so good with their words but are greater with their actions. Just because a person does not know how to convey his thoughts into words, it does not mean that he is anything less than what he is. Instead, try letting him show his thoughts through actions, art, or anything other than words. You will be surprised by what he can do.
Conclusion
If we only had our way, Firefly would have never been canceled. It has been almost two decades since the show stopped airing, but its fandom is still very much alive. These memorable quotes alone will prove just how good of a show it was during its day.
