The Twilight Zone (TV Series)

The Obsolete Man (1961)

Rod Serling: Narrator, Self - Host

Quotes 

• Narrator : [closing narration]  The chancellor, the *late* chancellor, was only partly correct: He *was* obsolete; but so is the State, the entity he worshiped. Any state or entity becomes obsolete when it stockpiles the wrong weapons: when it captures nations, but not minds; when it enslaves millions, yet convinces nobody; when it dons armor and calls it faith, when in the eyes of God it is naked, having no faith at all. Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of humanity... That state is obsolete. A case to be filed under "M" for Mankind -- in The Twilight Zone.

• [opening narration] 

  Narrator : You walk into this room at your own risk, because it leads to the future, not a future that will be but one that might be. This is not a new world, it is simply an extension of what began in the old one. It has patterned itself after every dictator who has ever planted the ripping imprint of a boot on the pages of history since the beginning of time. It has refinements, technological advances, and a more sophisticated approach to the destruction of human freedom. But like every one of the super-states that preceded it, it has one iron rule: logic is an enemy and truth is a menace. - This is Mr. Romney Wordsworth, in his last forty-eight hours on Earth. He's a citizen of the State but will soon have to be eliminated, because he's built out of flesh and because he has a mind. Mr. Romney Wordsworth, who will draw his last breaths - in The Twilight Zone.