Neil deGrasse Tyson Quotes

Companies want to innovate. Companies that don't innovate wither on the vine. The connection between STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) and the financial stability of a nation is what needs to established.

Right now people think God is dark energy and dark matter, the spirit. Go ahead and think that, but the day we can tell you exactly what it is - that it's gremlins in the vacuum of space or whatever - then what's your recourse at that point?

The day we stop exploring is the day we commit ourselves to live in a stagnant world, devoid of curiosity, empty of dreams.

Here's the problem, when you're stargazing on a mountain top you are partially oxygen-deprived and you're in command of million dollars worth of hardware. So as much as I would like to sip wine under the stars, it's contraindicated in the instructions on operating telescopes.

If I'm looking fit and I'm not, then I'm cheating.

We need to look at NASA, not as a handout, but as an investment.

Life existed on Earth for nearly four billion years before anything remotely resembling a human being showed up. And even then, when we started to branch off from other apes about 10,000,000 years ago, our ancestors looked pretty different.

I love the future we might invent for ourselves that I have not yet dreamt of.

Like a snowplow in overdrive, a supernova shockwave might sweep away any gas clouds in its path.

I don't know why a beauty salon would have a cop's hat and the curling irons are not deadly unless they're still plugged in and they're hot. So I'm not quite sure about that. But I don't know who remembers anymore that you can ignite spray cans, plus there aren't really any spray cans anymore 'cause that was destroying the ozone layer. So I'm - actually, I'll have to go with they chased him with the curling irons.

Some memories are best absorbed through your eyes in real time, even if you have no record of it later. Because then you can access that memory and how you felt in that moment. If you're looking at your cellphone screen, taking a video of something that is otherwise unforgettable, watching it later will not recover the emotion you would have had, had you witnessed it directly.

Our entire universe emerged from a point smaller than a single atom. Space itself exploded in a cosmic fire, launching the expansion of the universe and giving birth to all the energy and all the matter we know today. I know that sounds crazy, but there’s strong observational evidence to support the Big Bang theory. And it includes the amount of helium in the cosmos and the glow of radio waves left over from the explosion.

I never got into 'Star Wars.' Maybe because they made no attempt to portray real physics. At all.

God is an ever receding pocket of scientific ignorance.

If an artist is reaching for the universe as a source of creative muse, then I'm there. I'm gonna say, "Yeah. Here's Saturn. Here's a black hole. Here's twisted space-time. Talk to me. What do you need? What do you want?" And I'll just feed you, because I think only then does science become mainstream - when science becomes a legitimate topic for artists.

People like death and mayhem.

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

Many people are unhappy because there was some point in their past where there was some glory day, and as they get older they're not creating more glory days. They reflect on a time that they will never reach again, and it brings some level of dissatisfaction into their lives. I have circumvented that by simply making incumbent upon myself to always be productive in ways that are consistent with my physical body, my mental state of knowledge, but more important, my presumed growth in wisdom that would come with age.

Some of us wake up in the morning and just wonder how it is any of us actually sustain a paid job.

You know, dark matter matters.

When we try to look farther into the universe we come to what appears to be the end of space but actually it's the beginning of time.

Before we start talking about genetic differences, you gotta come up with a system where there's equal opportunity.

95, 96 percent of all that drives the universe has no known origin.

Where there's water on Earth, you find life as we know it. So if you find water somewhere else, it becomes a remarkable draw to look closer to see if life of any kind is there, even if it's bacterial, which would be extraordinary for the field of biology.

Once you've got the makings of a star, gravity draws leftover gas and dust into a giant swirling disk. The dust continues to stick together, clumping into rocky asteroids, which eventually become orbiting rocky planets. And voila: a solar system!

If your ego starts out, "I am important, I am big, I am special," you're in for some disappointments when you look around at what we've discovered about the universe. No, you're not big. No, you're not. You're small in time and in space. And you have this frail vessel called the human body that's limited on Earth.

I would teach how science works as much as I would teach what science knows. I would assert (given that essentially, everyone will learn to read) that science literacy is the most important kind of literacy they can take into the 21st century. I would undervalue grades based on knowing things and find ways to reward curiosity. In the end, it's the people who are curious who change the world.

I was raised Catholic. But if someone says I was raised in some religion, that's insufficient information to actually know what was going on. The real question is Was the religion in the household? The answer is no. Important decisions in the household were executed rationally and secularly. So as a result, the foundations of my reasoning derive not from religion but from the rational analysis of circumstances.

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

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.

The value of the space program is beyond science, it's beyond military; it's a cultural shift in how we think of our place in the universe.

Some air you inhale was exhaled by Cleopatra.

I think science has a better story to tell than anyone else has been able to tell and that's because it's based on the rigorous winnowing that science and scientists are always doing in order to find out what's really happening. I think it's really good to encourage generally our ability to tell stories and that's a great skill that we come by naturally, so I'm excited about that.

When NASA makes discoveries they are profound and they make headlines, everyone takes notice. It drives dialogue and, today, it would drive the blogosphere. It would drive the projects the kids do in school. So you wouldn't even need programs to try and stimulate curiosity. You wouldn't need programs to try to convince people that science literacy is good. Because they're going to want to participate on this epic adventure that we call space exploration.

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

Science reveals that all life on Earth is one.

Trillions of years into the future, when all stars are gone...all parts of the cosmos will cool to the same temperature as the ever-cooling background. At that time, space travel will no longer provide refuge because even Hell will have frozen over. We may then declare that the universe has died-not with a bang, but with a whimper.

WhenIWasYourAge: People were never "living with their disease." We cured them. Or they died from it.

The greatest of people that have ever been in society, they were never versions of someone else. They were themselves.

While we may lose track of certain goals intermittently throughout the decades, I think we as a nation can be nimble when we need to be. All the buzz today is on the need for science literacy. That is on the agenda in ways it hasn't been in previous decades.

I'm not writing for myself. I'm writing as an educator, I'm writing to stimulate others.

Private enterprise can never lead a space frontier. It's not possible because a space frontier is expensive, it has unknown risks and it has unquantified risks.

There's the anti-intellectual movement in society and I don't blame them entirely for feeling that way because we all know people, I have many colleagues where you try to hang out with them and they make you feel bad for not knowing what they know. If that's how you interact with people, why would anyone want to be that.

I believe that the manned space program can engage the public by advancing the space frontier. Every next mission takes you farther out in space than you were before, either technologically or in terms of distance.

In the New Testament, Thomas Jefferson cut out everything that was mystical, magical, miracle - physically with scissors - and then pasted in all that remained, such as Jesus's Sermon on the Mount.

If you're denying God's power, that means you don't really believe they were miracles, and so then why believe they happened at all. What you're saying is you're taking the Bible's account as literally true in need of a scientific explanation rather than just people coming up with stuff to fulfill their religious missions.

I want and need the artist to take me to new places, and the new place that Van Gogh took me not the sky as it is but the sky as he felt it. And the more of us that feel the universe, the better off we will be in this world.

Astrophysicists perfected navigation. We perfected all these things that matter to the power of nations manifest on the world stage. So we want to go into space. That's the new high ground, right? We care about multispectral imaging of things. Well, that's what reconnaissance wants to do. So our expertise has been in bed with national security needs forever. So maybe, secretly, that's why they keep us employed.