Helo: Symbols matter. Uniforms, flags, banners - even mascots. They're like pieces of your heart that you can see.

Hot Dog: I don't know anything about being a father.
Tyrol: It sucks... except the parts that don't.

Hybrid: They will not harm their own.

Hybrid: Thus will it come to pass. The Dying Leader will know the truth of the Opera House. The missing Three will give you the Five, who've come from the Home of the Thirteenth. You are the Harbinger of Death, Kara Thrace. You will lead them all to their End. End of line.

Kara "Starbuck" Thrace: Ummm. I have my flaws too.
Tigh: The difference is, my flaws are personal, yours are professional.

Kara Thrace: Did you see Ellen and Tigh on the wing of that bird? It's like watching my parents make out.

Lampkin: Lee said you once gave him something before a mission, a lighter.
Adama: Belonged to my father. Foolish to think a hunk of metal could keep him safe.
Lampkin: And yet that's what we do isn't it. Hang onto hope in every hopelessly irrational way that we can, but not like those poor bastards, giving away their luck just when they need it most. Its like they've given up.
Adama: If you've never been in combat you have no idea what they are thinking.
Lampkin: I always imagined you a realist, Admiral. Not one to indulge a vain hope at the cost of lives, but then everyone has his limits. Sine qua non as they say.
Adama: Without which not.
Lampkin: Yes, those things we deem essential, without which we cannot bear living. Without which life in general loses its specific value. Becomes, abstract.
Adama: You may have a point counselor.
Lampkin: Well, while I'm on a roll, Tom Zarek may not be an ideal president, but we could do worse.
Adama: You're right, there are limits to my realism. Goodbye counselor.

Lampkin: Why do you believe that the defendant, Gaius Baltar, deserves to be acquitted?
Lee: Well, because the evidence does not support the charges.
Lampkin: Come on...
Lee: Did the defendant make mistakes? Sure he did, serious mistakes, but did he actually commit any crimes? Did he commit treason? No. It was an impossible situation. When the Cylons arrived what could he possibly do? What could anyone have done? I mean, ask yourself, what would you have done? What would you have done? If he had refused to surrender, the Cylons would've probably nuked the planet, right then and there. So did he appear to co-operate with the Cylons? Sure, so did hundreds of others. What's the difference between him and them? The President issued a blanket pardon. They were all forgiven, no questions asked. Colonel Tigh? Colonel Tigh used suicide bombers, killed dozens of people, forgiven. Lieutenant Agathon and chief Tyrol murdered an officer on the Pegasus, forgiven. The admiral? The admiral instituted a military coup d'etat against the President, forgiven. And me? Well, where do I begin? I shot down a civilian passenger ship, the Olympic Carrier, over a thousand people on board, forgiven. I raised my weapon to a superior officer, committed an act of mutiny, forgiven. And then on the very day when Baltar surrendered to those Cylons, I, as commander of Pegasus, jumped away! I left everybody on that planet, alone, undefended for months. I even tried to persuade the admiral never to return, to abandon you all there for good. If I'd had my way nobody would have made it off that planet. I'm the coward, I'm the traitor, I'm forgiven. I'd say we're very forgiving of mistakes. We make our own laws now, our own justice, and we've been pretty creative with ways to let people off the hook. For everything from theft to murder. And we've had to be, because we're not a civilization anymore, we are a gang, and we're on the run, and we have to fight to survive. We have to break rules, we have to bend laws, we have to improvise! But not this time, no, not this time, not for Gaius Baltar. No, you, you have to die! You have to die, because, well, because we don't like you very much. Because you're arrogant, because you're weak, because you're a coward, and we, the mob, want to throw you out the airlock because you didn't stand up to the Cylons and get yourself killed in the process! That's justice now! You should've been killed back on New Caprica, but since you had the temerity to live, we're going to execute you now. That's justice!
[crowd murmurs angrily]
Judge: Order, order!
Lee: This case, this case is built on emotion, on anger, bitterness, but most of all it's built on shame. It's about the shame of what we did to ourselves back on that planet. It's about the guilt of those of us who ran away, who ran away. And we are trying to dump all of that guilt and all that shame onto one man, and then flush him out the airlock, and just hope that that gets rid of it all. So that we can live with ourselves. But that won't work. That won't work. That's not justice, not to me. Not to me.
Lampkin: No further questions.

Laura Roslin: What is your guilt about?
Dr. Gaius Baltar: I have no guilt.
Roslin: What was your guilt about?
Baltar: I gave the access codes to the Cylons. They wiped out most of humanity. Of course I didn't know that's what I was doing at the time. 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.
Roslin: Rewarded?
Baltar: Pythia talks about a flood. Wiped out most of humanity. Nobody blames the flood. Flood is a force of Nature. Through 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.

Lee: Well, sometimes a benevolent tyrant is exactly what you need.
Zarek: No. A tyrant craves power for its own sake. And all Laura wants is to save us all.

Lee: Why did you do this? Why did we do this?
Adama: Kara was family. You do whatever you have to do. Sometimes you break the rules.
Lee: And if it was me down there instead?
Adama: You don't have to ask that.
Lee: Are you sure?
Adama: If it were you, we'd never leave.

Leoben: I have a soul. I see patterns. I know you, you're damaged. You were born to a woman who believed that suffering was good for the soul, so you suffered. Your life is a testament to pain. Injuries. Accidents. Some inflicted upon others, others inflicted upon yourself. It surrounds you like a bubble. But it's not real, it's just... It's just something she put in your head. It's something that you want to believe because it means you're the problem, not the world that you live in. You want to believe it because it means that you're bad luck. You're like a cancer that needs to be removed. Because you hear her voice every day and you want her to be right.

Leoben: What is the most basic article of faith? This is not all that we are. The difference between you and me is, I know what that means and you don't. I know that I'm more than this body, more than this consciousness. A part of me swims in the stream. But in truth, I'm standing on the shore. The current never takes me downstream.

Lieutennant Kara "Starbuck" Thrace: Permission to speak off the record?
Tigh: Granted.
Starbuck: You're a bastard.

Lt. Karl 'Helo' Agathon: Hey. Aren't you Gaius Baltar?
Baltar: [startled] Yeah, I haven't done anything!