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A Good Man?
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My Favourite Quotes:

wholmesian has favourited 44 Quotes

SARAH JANE: Doctor, you're being childish.

DOCTOR: Well of course I am. There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes.

Robot

“Human progress isn't measured by industry, it's measured by the value you place on a life. An unimportant life. A life without privilege. The boy who died on the river, that boy's value is your value. That's what defines an age. That's what defines a species.”

— Twelfth Doctor, Thin Ice
The 12th Doctor

“I'm not running away. But this is one corner of one country in one continent on one planet that's a corner of a galaxy that's a corner of a universe that is forever growing and shrinking and creating and destroying and never remaining the same for a single millisecond. And there is so much, so much to see, Amy. Because it goes so fast. I'm not running away from things, I am running to them before they flare and fade forever. And it's all right. Our lives won't run the same. They can't. One day, soon maybe, you'll stop. I've known for a while.”

— Eleventh Doctor, The Power of Three

“The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and bad things. The good things don’t always soften the bad things, but vice versa, the bad things don’t always spoil the good things or make them unimportant.”

— Eleventh Doctor, Vincent and the Doctor

“Nothing’s sad until it’s over, and then everything is.”

— Twelfth Doctor, Hell Bent
The Twelfth Doctor playing Clara's theme on the guitar in the diner

“Love, in all its forms, is the most powerful weapon we have. Because love is a form of hope. And like hope, love abides. In the face of everything.”

— Thirteenth Doctor, Demons of the Punjab

“We’re all stories, in the end. Just make it a good one, eh?”

— Eleventh Doctor, The Big Bang

“Courage isn’t just a matter of not being frightened, you know. It’s being afraid and doing what you have to do anyway.”

— Third Doctor, Planet of the Daleks

“We’re all capable of the most incredible change. We can evolve while still staying true to who we are. We can honour who we’ve been and choose who we want to be next. Now’s your chance. How about it?”

— Thirteenth Doctor, The Woman Who Fell to Earth

“Because every time you see them happy you remember how sad they’re going to be. And it breaks your heart. Because what’s the point in them being happy if they’re going to be sad later? The answer is, of course, because they are going to be sad later.”

— Eleventh Doctor, The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe

“Never be cruel. Never be cowardly. Hate is always foolish. Love is always wise. Always try to be nice, but never fail to be kind.”

— Twelfth Doctor, Twice Upon a Time
The Twelfth Doctor, in the TARDIS

“Every great decision creates ripples, like a huge boulder dropped in a lake. The ripples merge and rebound off the banks in unforeseeable ways. The heavier the decision, the larger the waves, the more uncertain the consequences.”

— Seventh Doctor, Remembrance of the Daleks

“A straight line may be the shortest distance between two points, but it is by no means the most interesting.”

— Third Doctor, The Time Warrior

DOCTOR: Who's she?

SARDICK: Nobody important.

DOCTOR: Nobody important. Blimey, that's amazing. Do you know, in nine hundred years of time and space, I've never met anyone who wasn't important before.

A Christmas Carol

“Logic, my dear Zoe, merely enables one to be wrong with authority.”

— Second Doctor, The Wheel in Space

“Do you know what thinking is? It’s just a fancy word for changing your mind.”

— Twelfth Doctor, The Zygon Inversion
The 12th Doctor, in the Black Archive, speaking to Zygon Clara

“As we learn about each other, so we learn about ourselves.”

— First Doctor, The Edge of Destruction

“History sometimes gives us a terrible shock, and that is because we don’t quite fully understand. Why should we? After all, we’re too small to realize its final pattern. Therefore don’t try and judge it from where you stand.”

— First Doctor, The Massacre

“When you get back to Skaro, you’ll all be national heroes. Everybody’ll want to hear about your adventures. So be careful how you tell that story, will you? Don’t glamourize it. Don’t make war sound like an exciting and thrilling game. Tell them about the members of your mission that will not be returning. Like Maro, Vaber and Marat. Tell them about the fear. Otherwise your people might relish the idea of war. We don’t want that.”

— Third Doctor, Planet of the Daleks

“Oh, the blossomiest blossom. That's the only sad thing. I want to know what happens next. Right, then. Doctor Whoever-I'm-about-to-be. Tag, you're it.”

— Thirteenth Doctor, The Power of the Doctor

“People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey... stuff.”

— Tenth Doctor, Blink

“There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, where the sea's asleep, and the rivers dream. People made of smoke, and cities made of song. Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice, and somewhere else the tea's getting cold. Come on, Ace, we've got work to do!”

— Seventh Doctor, Survival

“Well, to be fair, I did have a couple of gadgets which he probably didn't, like a teaspoon and an open mind.”

— Fourth Doctor, The Creature from the Pit

DAVROS: The Daleks shall become Lords of Time! We shall become all-

DOCTOR: - Powerful. Crush the lesser races. Conquer the galaxy. Unimaginable power. Unlimited rice pudding, et cetera, et cetera.

Remembrance of the Daleks

DOCTOR: The Daleks have failed! Why don't you finish the job and make the Daleks extinct. Rid the Universe of your filth. Why don't you just die?

DALEK: You would make a good Dalek.

Dalek

“Do you know like we were saying about the Earth revolving? It's like when you were a kid. The first time they tell you the world's turning and you just can't quite believe it because everything looks like it's standing still. I can feel it. The turn of the Earth. The ground beneath our feet is spinning at a thousand miles an hour, and the entire planet is hurtling round the sun at sixty seven thousand miles an hour, and I can feel it. We're falling through space, you and me, clinging to the skin of this tiny little world, and if we let go. That's who I am. Now, forget me, Rose Tyler. Go home.”

— Ninth Doctor, Rose

DOCTOR: He asked you a question. Will you help me?

CLARA: You shouldn't have been listening.

DOCTOR: I wasn't. I didn't need to. That was me talking. You can't see me, can you? You look at me, and you can't see me. Have you any idea what that's like? I'm not on the phone, I'm right here, standing in front of you. Please, just, just see me.

Deep Breath
Clara, looking at the Twelfth Doctor, on a busy street, TARDIS in the background

“I can't! Why is it always me? Why is it never anybody else's turn? Can't I just lose? Just this once?”

— Twelfth Doctor, Heaven Sent

“Winning? Is that what you think it's about? I'm not trying to win. I'm not doing this because I want to beat someone, or because I hate someone, or because, because I want to blame someone. It's not because it's fun and God knows it's not because it's easy. It's not even because it works, because it hardly ever does. I do what I do, because it's right! Because it's decent! And above all, it's kind. It's just that. Just kind. If I run away today, good people will die. If I stand and fight, some of them might live. Maybe not many, maybe not for long. Hey, you know, maybe there's no point in any of this at all, but it's the best I can do, so I'm going to do it. And I will stand here doing it till it kills me. You're going to die too, some day. How will that be? Have you thought about it? What would you die for? Who I am is where I stand. Where I stand, is where I fall. Stand with me. These people are terrified. Maybe we can help, a little. Why not, just at the end, just be kind?”

— Twelfth Doctor, The Doctor Falls
The Twelfth Doctor, talking to The Saxon Master and Missy. He is angry and pointing

“We all change, when you think about it. We're all different people all through our lives. And that's okay, that's good, you've got to keep moving, so long as you remember all the people that you used to be. I will not forget one line of this. Not one day. I swear. I will always remember when the Doctor was me.”

— Eleventh Doctor, The Time of the Doctor

“Without hope. Without witness. Without reward.”

— Twelfth Doctor, The Doctor Falls

“All of time and space, everything that ever happened or ever will. Where do you want to start?”

— Eleventh Doctor, The Eleventh Hour

“Everybody lives, Rose. Just this once, everybody lives!”

— Ninth Doctor, The Doctor Dances

“If you could touch the alien sand and hear the cries of strange birds and watch them wheel in another sky, would that satisfy you?”

— First Doctor, An Unearthly Child

CLARA: I know it's scary and difficult, but do you love being the man making the impossible choice?

DOCTOR: Why would I?

CLARA: Because it's what you do, all day, every day.

DOCTOR: It's my life.

CLARA: Doesn't have to be. Is it like-

DOCTOR: Like what?

CLARA: An addiction?

DOCTOR: You can't really tell if something's an addiction till you try and give it up.

CLARA: And you never have.

DOCTOR: Let me know how it goes.

Mummy on the Orient Express

“But it was a childish dream that made you a doctor! You dreamt you could hold back death. Isn't that true? Don't be sad, Grace. You'll do great things.”

— Eighth Doctor, Doctor Who (The TV Movie)

“You feel that pounding in your heart? That tightness in the pit of your stomach? The blood rushing to your head, do you know what that is? That's adventure. The thrill and the fear, and the joy of stepping into the unknown. That's why we're all here, and that's why we're alive!”

— Eighth Doctor, Storm Warning

DOCTOR: I walked away from the last Great Time War. I marked the passing of the Time Lords.

I saw the birth of the universe and I watched as time ran out, moment by moment, until nothing remained.

No time. No space. Just me.

I walked in universes where the laws of physics were devised by the mind of a mad man.

I've watched universes freeze and creations burn. I've seen things you wouldn't believe. I have lost things you will never understand.

And I know things. Secrets that must never be told. Knowledge that must never be spoken. Knowledge that will make parasite gods blaze.

So come on, then. Take it! Take it all, baby! Have it! You have it all!

The Rings of Akhaten

“Great men are forged in fire. It is the privilege of lesser men to light the flame, whatever the cost.”

— War Doctor, The Day of the Doctor
The War Doctor's hand hovers over the Big Red Button of The Moment

DOCTOR: It's my back.

RIVER: Your back?

DOCTOR: Yeah, my back's playing up. It simply refuses to carry the weight of an entirely pointless stratum of society who contribute nothing of worth to the world and crush the hopes and dreams of working people.

The Husbands of River Song
The Twelfth Doctor, crossing his arms

DOCTOR: My entire understanding of physical space has been transformed! Three-dimensional Euclidean geometry has been torn up, thrown in the air and snogged to death! My grasp of the universal constants of physical reality has been changed forever!

DOCTOR: Sorry. I've always wanted to see that done properly.

The Husbands of River Song
Vertical shot looking down on the Doctor in the TARDIS as he gesticulates

RIVER: Does sarcasm help?

DOCTOR: Wouldn't it be a great universe if it did?

The Husbands of River Song
The Doctor in the TARDIS, holding the King's head

DOCTOR: Times end, River, because they have to. Because there's no such thing as happy ever after. It's just a lie we tell ourselves because the truth is so hard.

RIVER: No, Doctor, you're wrong. Happy ever after doesn't mean forever. It just means time. A little time. But that's not the sort of thing you could ever understand, is it?

The Husbands of River Song
The Doctor and River Song

MASTER: The title you chose: Doctor. Now, it’s not just a man of healing. It means “teacher”. It means “tutor”. Whereas I am a Master. We both want to change the universe, to make it better, it’s only the scale of our ambition separates us.

DOCTOR: What are you saying? You’d like to have been a Doctor but you didn’t have the patients?

Masterplan