76 Life-Changing Neil DeGrasse Tyson Quotes

The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.

  

For me, I am driven by two main philosophies: know more today about the world than I knew yesterday and lessen the suffering of others. You'd be surprised how far that gets you.

Me

  

We are all connected; To each other, biologically. To the earth, chemically. To the rest of the universe atomically.

  

We spend the first year of a child's life teaching it to walk and talk and the rest of its life to shut up and sit down. There's something wrong there.

Life

  

Curious that we spend more time congratulating people who have succeeded than encouraging people who have not.

Time

  

The more I learn about the universe, the less convinced I am that there's any sort of benevolent force that has anything to do with it, at all.

  

... there is no shame in not knowing. The problem arises when irrational thought and attendant behavior fill the vacuum left by ignorance.

  

My view is that if your philosophy is not unsettled daily then you are blind to all the universe has to offer.

  

I want to put on the table, not why 85% of the members of the National Academy of Sciences reject God, I want to know why 15% of the National Academy don’t.

  

God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance.

  

Not only do we live among the stars, the stars live within us.

  

Knowing how to think empowers you far beyond those who know only what to think.

Think

  

After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?

  

I know that the molecules in my body are traceable to phenomena in the cosmos. That makes me want to grab people on the street and say: ‘Have you HEARD THIS?

Me

  

The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.

  

There’s as many atoms in a single molecule of your DNA as there are stars in the typical galaxy. We are, each of us, a little universe.

  

When scientifically investigating the natural world, the only thing worse than a blind believer is a seeing denier.

  

Where ignorance lurks, so too do the frontiers of discovery and imagination

  

So you're made of detritus [from exploded stars]. Get over it. Or better yet, celebrate it. After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?

  

Ignorance is a virus. Once it starts spreading, it can only be cured by reason. For the sake of humanity, we must be that cure.

  

Down there between our legs, it's like an entertainment complex in the middle of a sewage system. Who designed that?

Like

  

Dinosaurs are extinct today because they lacked opposable thumbs and the brainpower to build a space program.

  

Cutting PBS support (0.012% of budget) to help balance the Federal budget is like deleting text files to make room on your 500Gig hard drive

Like

  

So what is true for life itself is no less true for the universe: knowing where you came from is no less important than knowing where you are going.

Life

  

Scientific inquiry shouldn't stop just because a reasonable explanation has apparently been found.

  

The remarkable feature of physical laws is that they apply everywhere, whether or not you choose to believe in them. After the laws of physics, everything else is opinion.

  

God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance that's getting smaller and smaller and smaller as time moves on.

Time

  

I love the smell of the universe in the morning.

  

If you need to invoke your academic pedigree or job title for people to believe what you say, then you need a better argument.

  

When students cheat on exams it's because our school system values grades more than students value learning.

  

Doing what has never been done before is intellectually seductive, whether or not we deem it practical.

Never

  

Our nation is turning into an idiocracy.

  

Some of the greatest poetry is revealing to the reader the beauty in something that was so simple you had taken it for granted.

  

Science is a philosophy of discovery. Intelligent design is a philosophy of ignorance.

  

In modern times, if the sole measure of what’s out there flows from your five senses then a precarious life awaits you.

Life

  

Science needs the light of free expression to flourish. It depends on the fearless questioning of authority, and the open exchange of ideas.

  

Every living thing is a masterpiece, written by nature and edited by evolution.

  

People like death and mayhem.

Like

  

The more of us that feel the universe, the better off we will be in this world.

  

In the beginning, there was physics.

  

When your reasons for believing something are justified ad hoc, you are left susceptible to further discoveries undermining the rationale for that belief.

  

Unlike what you may be told in other sectors of life, when observing the universe, size does matter, which often leads to polite ‘telescope envy’ at gatherings of amateur astronomers.

Life

  

Still, our knowledge of the planets was meager, and where ignorance lurks, so too do the frontiers of discovery and imagination.

  

Science literacy is an important part of what it is to be an informed citizen of society.

  

Practically every food you buy in a store for consumption by humans is genetically modified food. There are no wild, seedless watermelons. There's no wild cows.

  

It's okay not to know all the answers. It's better to admit our ignorance than to believe answers that might be wrong. Pretending to know everything, closes the door to finding out what's really there.

  

There’s no shame in admitting what you don’t know. The only shame is pretending you know all the answers.

  

Without a doubt, the most spectacular way to die in space is to fall into a black hole.

  

I get enormous satisfaction from knowing I'm doing something for society.

  

It is the destiny of stars to collapse.

  

We live on a cosmic speck of dust, orbiting a mediocre star in the far suburbs of a common sort of galaxy, among a hundred billion galaxies in the universe.

  

After 50 years of television, there’s no other conclusion the aliens could draw, but that most humans are neurotic, death-hungry, dysfunctional idiots.

  

Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure science. —EDWIN P. HUBBLE (1889–1953), The Nature of Science

  

Science, enabled by engineering, empowered by NASA, tells us not only that we are in the universe but that the universe is in us. And for me, that sense of belonging elevates, not denigrates, the ego.

Ego , Me

  

Let’s get China to leak a memo that says they want to build military bases on Mars. We’d be on Mars in twelve months.

  

The options available to a creative person are ever limited by the choices offered by a philosopher.

  

Science literacy is less about what you know and more about how your brain is wired for asking questions.

  

Some 14 billion years ago, at the beginning of time, all the space and all the matter and all the energy of the known universe fit within a pinhead.

Time

  

The universe has never made one of anything, so why would there even be one of itself?

Never

  

Curious fact that those who never fail are also those who never truly succeed.

Never

  

To declare that Earth must be the only planet in the universe with life would be inexcusably big-headed of us.

Life

  

If we don't act , we're just standing still. and the act of standing still is the same as moving backwards when everyone else is in motion all around us, around the world

  

Let there be no doubt that as they are currently practiced, there is no common ground between science and religion.

  

I look forward to the day when the solar system becomes our collective backyard—explored not only with robots, but with the mind, body, and soul of our species.

  

On Venus you could cook a 16-inch pepperoni pizza in seven seconds, just by holding it out to the air. (Yes, I did the math.)

  

It's okay not to know all the answers. It's better to admit our ignorance than to believe answers that might be wrong. Pretending to know everything closes the door to finding out what's already there.

  

And behold the greatest mystery of them all: an unopened can of diet Pepsi floats in water while an unopened can of regular Pepsi sinks.

  

To learn that it's easier to be told by others what to think and believe than it is to think for yourself.

Think , Yourself

  

A bullet fired level from a gun will hit ground at same time as a bullet dropped from the same height. Do the Physics.

Time

  

The stated authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.

  

The only people who should have their head examined are those who never ask questions.

Never

  

If the world is something you accept rather than interpret, then you're susceptible to the influence of charismatic idiots.

  

The less evidence we have for what we believe is certain, the more violently we defend beliefs against those who don't agree.

  

We’re a sleepy nation right now. I want us to be a nation of innovation.

  

The day gets about one second longer every 67,000 years.

  

When you organize extraordinary missions, you attract people of extraordinary talent who might not have been inspired by or attracted to the goal of saving the world from cancer or hunger or pestilence.