Where did the concept of "without borders" come from? No one had that concept until you saw Earth from space, illustrated not by a mapmaker who's color-coding political boundaries; it's illustrated by nature itself and there's land, there's ocean, there's atmosphere.
Neil deGrasse TysonI think on some level, role models are overrated If you require a role model who looks just like you to be something you wanna be and you can't find one, is that a reason to not be what you wanna be? No!
Neil deGrasse TysonI see all this talk about jobs going overseas as a symptom of the absence of innovation. And the absence of innovation is a symptom of there being no major national priority to advance a frontier.
Neil deGrasse TysonWhen I wrestled, I would set aside the time to wrestle, so that in my mind it didn't interfere with my study time. If I'd say, "I'm going to study this many hours, then I'm going to go work out and wrestle," then when that time comes, you don't feel like you should be doing something else. That helped me psychologically. But otherwise? When I'm wrestling, I'm not studying the universe. And when I'm studying the universe, I'm not wrestling.
Neil deGrasse TysonScientists are human. We have our blind spots and prejudices. Science is a mechanism designed to ferret them out. Problem is we aren't always faithful to the core values of science.
Neil deGrasse TysonI think that intelligence is such a narrow branch of the tree of life - this branch of primates we call humans. No other animal, by our definition, can be considered intelligent. So intelligence can't be all that important for survival, because there are so many animals that don't have what we call intelligence, and they're surviving just fine.
Neil deGrasse Tyson