When you are a Time Lord that has been around for two thousand years there is a lot of wisdom you need to impart on humans, aliens, universes, and even sometimes, yourself.
RELATED: 23 of the Most Enviable Hugs Ever
Doctor Who has been host to many monologues over the years that have made us laugh, cry, and grin with excitement about what’s to come.
Sometimes its a moment when the Doctor says hello, and sometimes it’s a tearful goodbye, but one thing they all have in common is how they all manage to tug at our heartstrings.
RELATED: 31 Ship Teases that Were Downright Cruel
Here are 19 of Doctor Who’s most epic speeches. Be sure to watch Doctor Who online to relive each of these epic moments.
Telling Off a God
The Doctor is so lawful good that seeing anyone being taken advantage of sets him off. On Doctor Who Season 7 Episode 7, “The Rings of Akhaten,” he tells off a god on a planet where the main form of currency is items of sentimental value. During the climactic final speech, The Doctor confronts the God and finally offers himself up in turn: “Oh, you like to think you’re a god. But you’re not a god. You’re just a parasite eaten out with jealousy and envy and longing for the lives of others. You feed on them. On the memory of love and loss and birth and death and joy and sorrow. So, come on, then. Take mine. Take my memories.”
The Most Important Woman in the Universe
On Doctor Who Season 4 Episode 13, “Journey’s End,” the Doctor said goodbye to Donna Noble. After having to wipe her mind of everywhere they’ve been and everywhere they went, he had a few things to say to Donna’s mother and grandmother stressing their daughter’s role in saving the planet. “I just want you know there are worlds out there safe in the sky because of her. And there are people living in the light and singing songs of Donna Noble a thousand million light years away. They will never forget her. While she can never remember. But for one moment, one shining moment, she was the most important woman in the whole wide universe,” says the Doctor.
Let Someone Else Try First
During Doctor Who Season 5 Episode 12, “The Pandorica Opens,” there was one thing on the Doctor’s mind, and that was the weapon that the box supposedly held. Of course, while he’s trying to figure out what it contains all of his enemies show up prompting him to broadcast a warning. Looking up at all the ships he says, “Come on! Look at me. No plan, no backup, no weapons worth a damn. Oh, and something else. I don’t have anything to lose! So, if you’re sitting up there in your silly little spaceship, with all your silly little guns, and you’ve got any plans on taking the Pandorica tonight, just remember who’s standing in your way. Remember every black day I ever stopped you, and then, and then, do the smart thing. Let somebody else try first.”
I Can Feel It
There was no forgetting the Doctor the second he stepped into Rose Tyler’s life during Doctor Who Season 1 Episode 1, “Rose.” The moment when he stood next to her and said, ” 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 around 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…” But as serious as the speech was, he quickly shifted his tone and said, “That’s who I am. Now forget me, Rose Tyler. Go home.”
Amelia’s Afterword
Departures are a regular part of the Doctor Who universe, and the Doctor isn’t good with endings. Amelia and Rory’s death on Doctor Who Season 7 Episode 5, “The Angels Take Manhattan,” was an especially hard moment for the Eleventh Doctor. After saving Rory from the clutches of The Weeping Angels, one survivor sent them back into the past where they lived out their days. A book that was published, that the Doctor had been reading earlier in the series contained a final message from his best friend. The message included a few caring words for The Doctor, “Sometimes I do worry about you, though. I think once we’re gone, you won’t be coming back here for a while, and you might be alone, which you should never be. Don’t be alone, Doctor.”
Making Friends with a Universe
Doctor Who Season 11 Episode 9, “It Takes You Away,” proves that only the Doctor can make friends with a whole universe. Similar to how The Doctor was willing to put himself in front of a memory-eating god on “Rings of Akhaten,” the Thirteenth Doctor’s willing to stay behind in a whole other universe if it means saving her friends. While The Doctor can’t stay with the soletract, she comes up with a bittersweet love letter to both her home universe and this one. When she convinces the soletract to let her depart she says gently, “You are the maddest, most beautiful thing I’ve ever experienced, and I haven’t even scratched the surface. I wish I could stay. But if either of us are going to survive, you’re going to have to let me go and keep on being brilliant by yourself.”
Doctor, I Let You Go
“You wait a moment, Doctor. Let’s get it right. I’ve got a few things to say to you,” he says just before he sets to work regenerating. Regeneration is a tricky business and the Twelfth Doctor almost didn’t regeneration but during the Doctor Who Christmas Special, “Twice Upon a Time,” he acknowledged that humans needed him. He decided that he would regenerate, and this time he’d get it right. Here’s hoping that the Thirteenth Doctor doesn’t make the mistake of eating pears.
Everybody Lives
The Doctor doesn’t like endings, so it’s no surprise that a future version of himself would save River Song’s life after witnessing her death in The Library. At the end of Doctor Who Season 4 Episode 9, “Forest of the Dead,” the Doctor saves River’s consciousness. In a computer’s virtual world, inhabited by an AI, and the consciousness of a young girl, River is able to live out her days, but still tells stories of the Doctor and his amazing feats. She reads to the children at bedtime, “Now and then, every once in a very long while, every day in a million days, when the wind stands fair, and the Doctor comes to call. Everybody lives.”
Missy Pleads for Her Life
The Doctor and his childhood friend, The Master, have always had a long and sorted history. That history came to a head on Doctor Who Season 10 Episode 6, “Extremis,” when the Doctor was called to be Missy’s executioner. The story is braided into a larger plot, and the audience never gets an answer for what Missy to warrant her death, but right before the Doctor pulls the lever she makes an emotional plea for her life. She says, “I know it doesn’t. I know I’m going to die. I have to say it, the truth. Without hope. Without witness. Without reward. I am your friend.”
Fear Makes Companions of Us All
Time travel makes for some very crazy circumstances. Like the time Clara ended up in a barn with a very young, and very scared version of The Doctor at the end of Doctor Who Season 8 Episode 4, “Listen.” That is before he even was The Doctor. The boy in the barn is a scared child afraid of everything to come, but Clara knows his future and has a few kind words for him in regards to fear. “You’re always going to be afraid. Even if you learn to hide it. Fear is like, a companion. A constant companion always there. But that’s okay because fear can bring us together. Fear can bring you home,” Clara tells him.
A Scale Model of War
“When you fire that first shot, no matter how right you feel, you have no idea who’s going to die! You don’t know whose children are going to scream and burn! How many hearts will be broken! How many lives shattered! How much blood will spill until everybody does until what they were always going to have to do from the very beginning! Sit down and talk!” screams the Doctor on Doctor Who Season 9 Episode 8, “The Zygon Inversion.” In what might just be the best speech ever given on Doctor Who, the Twelfth Doctor gives a Zygon and the leader of U.N.I.T. a lesson in exactly what happens when you go to war! Consider The Doctor’s history; he’s the reason his home planet was destroyed in The Time War. If you should listen to anyone on this matter it’s him.
We’re All Stories in the End
Continuing on the theme of The Doctor being the most selfless alien you’ll ever meet, we have his “We’re All Stories in the End” speech from Doctor Who, Season 5 Episode 13, “The Big Bang.” In an attempt to repair the cracks in the universe, the Doctor flies The Pandorica into the heart of an explosion and ends up watching a rewind of his life. During it, he tucks in a little Amelia Pond who had fallen asleep waiting for him in the garden. “When you wake up, you’ll have a mum and dad, and you won’t even remember me. Well, you’ll remember me a little. I’ll be a story in your head. But that’s okay. We’re all stories in the end. Just make it a good one, eh? Because it was, you know. It was the best,” he begins.
Just Be Kind
Doctor Who Season 10 Episode 12, “The Doctor Falls,” was the beginning of the end for Peter Capaldi’s fun as The Doctor. Opposite him, not one, but two, versions of The Master. In context, The Doctor had just spent seventy-five years trying to rehabilitate Missy, and it seemed to be working until this little outing. Her previous incarnation did not share any of her new beliefs and wasn’t shy about letting The Doctor know it. Which prompted The Doctor to set him straight. “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,” he says to The Master. “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.”
I Believe In Love In All It’s Forms
The Doctor is great at taking ordinary people and making them feel extraordinary. That’s exactly what she did on Doctor Who Season 11 Episode 6, “Demons of the Punjab,” when she officiated a wedding between Umbreen and Prem who become the first couple married in Pakistan. In an episode that was about what divides us, the Doctor offers a few empowering words: “‘You both found love with each other. You believed in it, you fought for it, and you waited for it. And now, you’re committing to it, which makes you two right now the two strongest people on this planet. Maybe in this universe.”
I’ll Never Forget One Line of This
No matter how many times you watch The Doctor regenerate it never gets easier. This meta speech at the end of the Doctor Who Christmas Special, “The Time of the Doctor” kicked us right in the feels when the Eleventh Doctor took his bow emphasizing the show’s fifty years of history. “I will not forget one line of this, not one day, I swear. I will always remember when The Doctor was me…” he says.
Have a Fantastic Life
The Doctor will always put himself in harm’s way to save his companions, and that’s exactly what the Ninth Doctor did to Rose Tyler during Doctor Who Season 1 Episode 12, “Bad Wolf.” Activating Emergency Program One, he sends The Tardis and Rose home, giving her instructions to go home and let the Tardis die while he fights a battle on Satellite 5. “And if you want to remember me then you can do one thing. That’s all, one thing. Have a good life. Do that for me, Rose. Have a fantastic life,” he says in a holographic recording.
Basically, Run
Every Doctor gets a moment to make an entrance and defend Earth. For the Eleventh Doctor is happened at the end of Doctor Who Season 5 Episode 1, “The Eleventh Hour,” on a hospital roof after stealing clothes from a locker room. He calls the Atraxi back to Earth and tells them off, ending with a very curt introduction of, “Hello, I’m the Doctor. Basically, run!”
It’s All Untested
Even The Doctor has an identity crisis at times. When Christopher Eckelson regenerated into David Tennant it was the first time new fans of Doctor Who got a chance to see a regeneration. The Doctor spent most the Doctor Who Season 2 Christmas Special, “The Christmas Invasion,” in the Tylers’ apartment in a healing coma, springing to life for a few moments at a time. When he finally wakes up for real, he has some explaining to do, which is difficult when you’re a new version of yourself. So when the Sycorax asks him who he is, the only logical response is, “I don’t know.” Followed by a lot of questions.
It Means Life
“Time. Time doesn’t pass. Time is an illusion. And Life is the magician. Because Life only lets you see one day at a time. You remember being alive yesterday, you hope you’re going to be alive tomorrow, so it feels like you are traveling one to the other, but nobody’s moving anywhere!” the Twelfth Doctor says in one of his lectures at the start of Doctor Who Season 10 Episode 1, “The Pilot.” The Twelfth Doctor may have walked a line between a grumpy old man and an eccentric uncle, but this speech gives viewers a lot to chew on. The chaotic energy of his speech feeds right into the timey-wimey themes of the series and leaves viewers excited for a new season opener.
I Believe In Her
When the Doctor encounters an incarnation of The Devil on Doctor Who Season 2 Episode 9, “The Satan Pit,” he delivers a rousing speech against the entity. Having sacrificed himself to save a ship full of people he now finds himself having to make another choice, but he puts his trust in Rose. As he puzzles out what he is going to do he says, “But I’ve seen a lot of this Universe. I’ve seen fake gods and bad gods and demigods and would-be gods. And out of all that, out of that whole pantheon, if I believe in one thing—just one thing—I believe in her.”
I’m Not a Hero
Everything changes in Doctor Who, eventually. In the case of Doctor Who Season 6 Episode 11, “The God Complex,” it was time for Amy Pond to grow up. To escape the building they were trapped in the Doctor had to destroy her belief in him and so he gently says, “Look at you, glorious Pond. The Girl Who Waited for me. I’m not a hero. I really am just a madman in a box. And it’s time we saw each other as we really are. Amy Williams. It’s time to stop waiting.”
