Neil deGrasse Tyson famous quotes

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.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Cows #Stores #Consumption

When you advance a frontier, you're doing something that no one has done before. Every time that happens, you have to innovate. You have to think in new ways that hadn't been thought before. You have to invent a new piece of hardware, a new concept, a new law of physics, a new material, a new construction material to enable you to accomplish what it is that you chose to reach for by dreaming about tomorrow.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Dream #Thinking #Law

Why can't we summon the ingenuity and courage of the generations that came before us? The dinosaurs never saw that asteroid coming. What's our excuse?
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Generations #Dinosaurs #Asteroids

When I needed to overcome the low expectations of others or the bias that would be expressed in one circumstance or another, I'd keep on keeping on. And I climb over the obstacle, go around it, dig under it, fly over it. That's what kept me going. Otherwise I would have never been an astrophysicist.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Expectations #Would Be #Overcoming

Today, scientists sound the alarm on other environmental dangers. Vested interests still hire their own scientists to confuse the issue. But in the end, nature, will not be fooled.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Issues #Environmental #Today

The school system is constructed to praise you if you get high grades. And if you get straight A's, you're the one that everyone puts forward, and they prognosticate that the straight-A person is the one most likely to succeed, because that's the way the school system is constructed and conceived.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#School #Getting High #Way

The theory of evolution, like the theory of gravity, is a scientific fact.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Facts #Evolution #Theory

We have people who believe they are scientifically literate but, in fact, are not.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Believe #People #Facts

The problem in society is not kids not knowing science. The problem is adults not knowing science. They outnumber kids 5 to 1, they wield power, they write legislation. When you have scientifically illiterate adults, you have undermined the very fabric of what makes a nation wealthy and strong.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Strong #Writing #Kids

So not enough people in this world, I think, carry a cosmic perspective with them. It could be life-changing.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Life Changing #Thinking #Perspective

To learn more about science, turn off your electronic device and go outside and look around a bit. Nature is calling you. Go on. The internet will still be here.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Goes On #Looks #Calling

What are we promoting in society? Well-behaved automatons that spew back what they learned in a book. That's not science. You can get a parrot to do that.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Book #Parrots #Wells

The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Inspirational #Obligation #Make Sense

Exploration is what you do when you don't know what you're doing. That's what scientists do every day. If a scientist already knew what they were doing, they wouldn't be discovering anything, because they already knew what they were doing.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Exploration #Scientist #Discovering

No one is dumb who is curious. The people who don't ask questions remain clueless throughout their lives.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Clueless #School #Learning

You will never find people who truly grasp the cosmic perspective such as the entire community of astrophysicists leading nations into battle. No, that doesn't happen. When you have a cosmic perspective, there's this little speck called Earth and you say you're going to do what? You're on this side of a line in the sand and you want to kill people for what?
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Perspective #People #Community

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.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Children #Teaching #Years

Any astrophysicist does not feel small looking up at the universe; we feel large.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Doe #Feels #Universe

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.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Philosophy #Knowledge #Kids

I want to encourage people to not think in terms of gifts, but think in terms of, wow. You work hard to succeed at that, because that's exactly what I do.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Hard Work #Thinking #People

Once upon a time, people identified the god Neptune as the source of storms at sea. Today we call these storms hurricanes.... The only people who still call hurricanes acts of God are the people who write insurance forms.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Writing #Sea #People

The greatest teachers are the ones that turn a B student into an A student, or a failing student into a B student.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Teacher #Students #Failing

After your first job, is anyone asking you what your GPA was? No, they don't care. They ask you: Are you a good leader? Do people follow you? Do you have integrity? Are you innovative? Do you solve problems? Somebody's got to do that homework and redesign the educational system so that it can actually train people to be successful in life
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Jobs #Integrity #Educational

'As a fraction of your tax dollar today, what is the total cost of all spaceborne telescopes, planetary probes, the rovers on Mars, the International Space Station, the space shuttle, telescopes yet to orbit, and missions yet to fly?' Answer: one-half of one percent of each tax dollar. Half a penny. I'd prefer it were more: perhaps two cents on the dollar. Even during the storied Apollo era, peak NASA spending amounted to little more than four cents on the tax dollar.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Bad Ass #Two #Space

Science literacy is the artery through which the solutions of tomorrow's problems flow.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Flow #Tomorrow #Problem

You don't want to raise a kid in a culture where the kid who asks the most questions is annoying. You want a culture where the kid who asks the most questions gets awards and gets another piece of cake.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Kids #Cake #Awards

The center line of science literacy - which not many people tell you, but I feel this strongly, and I will go to my grave making this point - is how you think.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Thinking #People #Lines

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

#Beauty #Earth #Energy

We're an elective democracy where science and technology will define where the economically strong countries in the world will be. And science and technological literacy is important for security, as well.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Country #Strong #Technology

It's better to understand something than to memorize something.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

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.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Space #Trying #Looks

The dinosaurs never saw that asteroid coming. What's our excuse?
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Asteroids #Saws #Dinosaurs

You have the illusion of free will, but, in fact, that illusion comes about because you don't know the future. Because you are a prisoner of the present, forever locked in transition, between the past and the future.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Past #Forever #Facts

Some claim evolution is just a theory. As if it were merely an opinion. The theory of evolution, like the theory of gravity, is a scientific fact. Evolution really happened. Accepting our kinship with all life on Earth is not only solid science. In my view, it’s also a soaring spiritual experience.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Spiritual #Views #Earth

I don't like trying to influence politicians, who are themselves representative of huge numbers of people. As an educator, I'd rather enlighten the people and educate the people and let they be the ones who put the pressure on their elected officials.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Numbers #People #Trying

We are part of this universe; we are in this universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts, is that the universe is in us.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Nature #Important #Facts

I've never been the critic of reality TV that others have, especially many of my colleagues who wonder if it's just the end of America. It's a free market and you just put it on. The fact that science has not been on neck-and-neck with it means that people believe science could not compete on that level.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Believe #Mean #Reality

The problem, often not discovered until late in life, is that when you look for things in life like love, meaning, motivation, it implies they are sitting behind a tree or under a rock. The most successful people in life recognize, that in life they create their own love, they manufacture their own meaning, they generate their own motivation. 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.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Motivation #Philosophy #Successful

People are really excited about robotic exploration. I understand the feeling there because, in fact, robots can do things humans can't. They can survive harsh conditions, they can explore places we would never go, plus you never actually have to bring them back.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#People #Feelings #Facts

While the Copernican principle comes with no guarantees that it will forever guide us to cosmic truths, it's worked quite well so far: not only is Earth not in the center of the solar system, but the solar system is not in the center of the Milky Way galaxy, the Milky Way galaxy is not in the center of the universe, and it may come to pass that our universe is just one of many that comprise a multiverse. And in case you're one of those people who thinks that the edge may be a special place, we are not at the edge of anything either.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Science #Thinking #People

Everybody's got money for vacation time. Look at how much we all spend just to get - well, I get sick on the loop-the-loop roller coasters. People pay money for that kind of experience. So I would certainly save up money, save several vacations worth of money, to go on a suborbital flight or any rocket flights.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Get Well #Vacation #Sick

I simply go with what works. And what works is the healthy skepticism embodied in the scientific method. Believe me, if the Bible had ever been shown to be a rich source of scientific answers and enlightenment, we would be mining it daily for cosmic discovery.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Believe #Discovery #Healthy

When NASA says they're going into space, they don't mean up and back. They mean orbit.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Mean #Space #Orbit

Italy valued cathedrals while Spain valued explorers. So worldwide, five times as many people speak Spanish than Italian.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Atheist #Italian #People

I don't want to go into space because of war. I think we would if it was triggered. If China said they want to put military bases on Mars, we'd be at Mars in two years. That would be quick. I don't want that to be the reason.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#War #Military #Thinking

The universe has really never made things in ones. The Earth is special and everything else is different? No, we've got seven other planets. The sun? No, the sun is one of those dots in the night sky. The Milky Way? No, it's one of a hundred billion galaxies. And the universe--maybe it's countless other universes.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Night #Sky #Special

Spin-off technologies are changing the culture. Even if you don't become an engineer you could be a poet, a journalist, a lawyer, but you will be thinking innovation and your actions within society, who you vote for, what you value, all become a participant in an innovation economy.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Technology #Thinking #Innovation

I don't have an issue with what you do in the church, but I'm going to be up in your face if you're going to knock on my science classroom and tell me they've got to teach what you're teaching in your Sunday school. Because that's when we're going to fight.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Teaching #School #Sunday

Miniaturization of electronics started by NASA's push became an entire consumer products industry. Now we're carrying the complete works of Beethoven on a lapel pin listening to it in headphones.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Listening #Electronics #Nasa

If all that you see, do, measure and discover is the will of a deity, then ideas can never be proven wrong, you have no predictive power, and you are at a loss to understand the principles behind most of the fundamental interconnections of nature.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Loss #Ideas #Fundamentals

Aliens might be surprised to learn that in a cosmos with limitless starlight, humans kill for energy sources buried in the sand
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Cosmos #Might #Energy

That is a big question we all have: are we alone in the universe? And exoplanets confirm the suspicion that planets are not rare.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Planets #Bigs #Suspicion

It's quite literally true that we are star dust, in the highest exalted way one can use that phrase. ...I bask in the majesty of the cosmos. I use words, compose sentences that sound like the sentences I hear out of people that had revelation of Jesus, who go on their pilgrimages to Mecca.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Jesus #Stars #Dust

Something we all have as kids and is beaten out of us as adults. Parents come up to me, "How do I get my kids interested in science?" They're already interested in science. Just stop beating it out of them.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Kids #Parent #Adults

Not only are we in the universe, the universe is in us. I don't know of any deeper spiritual feeling than what that brings upon me.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Spiritual #Feelings #Deeper

Why can't Pluto be a planet? Some people like Pluto. And if it doesn't exist then they don't have a favorite planet. Right? Please write back but not in cursive because I can't read cursive.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Writing #People #Pluto

Perhaps we've never been visited by aliens because they have looked upon Earth and decided there's no sign of intelligent life.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Intelligent #Earth #Aliens

In terms of the most astonishing fact about which we know nothing, there is dark matter and dark energy. We don't know what either of them is. Everything we know and love about the universe and all the laws of physics as they apply, apply to four percent of the universe. That's stunning.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Dark #Law #Four

I'm optimistic. I see no longer people accepting fuzzy thinking in the world. The change is not that people aren't still saying under-informed things. The change is that if you're in power and you say something under-informed, there are people out there with a voice who will take you to task for having done so
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Optimistic #Bad Ass #Thinking

The miniaturization of electronics, which ultimately was driven by the marketplace, was started by NASA, because it costs money to get something into orbit. So you want to trim your electronics, miniaturize your electronics, miniaturize your satellites.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Cost #Electronics #Want

To be scientifically literate is to empower yourself to know when someone else is full of bullshit.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Bullshit #Empowering #Empower Yourself

Intelligent life can't be all that common because it's really rare on Earth and especially since we define ourselves to be intelligent. But in the eyes of an alien coming here who has the technology to make it here, they might observe us and conclude that there's no sign of intelligent life on Earth.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Eye #Intelligent #Technology

If you want to assert a truth, first make sure it's not just an opinion that you desperately want to be true.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Want #Firsts #Opinion

What would aliens say when told earthlings shift clocks twice a year to fool themselves into thinking there's more sunlight?
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Thinking #Years #Fool

Not enough of our society is trained how to understand and interpret quantitative information. This activity is a centerpiece of science literacy to which we should all strive-the future health, wealth, and security of our democracy depend on it. Until that is achieved, we are at risk of making under-informed decisions that affect ourselves, our communities, our country, and even the world.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Country #Future #Science

I'd like - inviting aliens and have them observe what we do because so much of what we do that we take for granted will just be weird or extraordinary or just plain dumb when observed by an alien from another civilization.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Civilization #Dumb #Aliens

The universe is hilarious! Like, Venus is 900 degrees. I could tell you it melts lead. But that's not as fun as saying, 'You can cook a pizza on the windowsill in nine seconds.' And next time my fans eat pizza, they're thinking of Venus!
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Fun #Thinking #Fans

I want to create the airplane that flies in the rarified atmosphere of Mars. This is what galvanizes a generation to want to become scientists and engineers in the first place, not we need a scientist to develop a plane that's 20 percent more fuel-efficient than the one your parents flew.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Airplane #Parent #Atmosphere

Whether or not you can never become great at something, you can always become better at it. Don't ever forget that! And don’t say “I’ll never be good”. You can become better! and one day you’ll wake up and you’ll find out how good you actually became.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Mind Blowing #One Day #Wake Up

If you find life on Europa [Jupiter's moon], like, what would you call it? Would it be, like, Europeans?
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Moon #Jupiter

Not only do we live among the stars, the stars live within us.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Stars

Everyone has all different experiences in school. I just know that throughout my life, at no time did any teacher ever point to me and say, hey. He'll go far.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Teacher #School #Different

One of the biggest problems with the world today is that we have large groups of people who will accept whatever they hear on the grapevine, just because it suits their worldview—not because it is actually true or because they have evidence to support it. The really striking thing is that it would not take much effort to establish validity in most of these cases… but people prefer reassurance to research.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#People #Support #Effort

No one with a living room radio that was a piece of furniture at the time would say, gee. I want to carry that around on my hip pocket. That was not a thought until NASA initiated this whole exercise. So there's an influence that's not just spinoff.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Exercise #Pieces #Want

Kids are never the problem. They are born scientists. The problem is always the adults. They beat the curiosity out of kids. They outnumber kids. They vote. They wield resources. That's why my public focus is primarily adults.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Kids #Focus #Mind Blowing

Some morning while your eating breakfast and you need something new to think about, though, you might want to ponder the fact that you see your kids across the table not as they are but as they once were, about three nanoseconds ago.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Morning #Kids #Thinking

When I was a kid, I thought that if everyone looked up the way I did then everyone would want to study the universe just like me - how could they not? This naiveté is what tells me that my interest was more a calling than a rational comparative assessment about what to be when I grew up.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Kids #Assessment #Calling

I don't want students who could make the next major breakthrough in renewable energy sources or space travel to have been taught that anything they don't understand, and that nobody yet understands, is divinely constructed and therefore beyond their intellectual capacity. The day that happens, Americans will just sit in awe of what we don't understand, while we watch the rest of the world boldly go where no mortal has gone before.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Space #Intellectual #Watches

Extreme skepticism and extreme gullibility are two equal ways of not having to think at all. And I don't think I'm the first to say that.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Thinking #Two #Way

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
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Cutting #Pbs #Support

Space is the ultimate frontier. I think when people historically thought of the frontier, there was where you were living and then there was some edge beyond which no one had explored.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Thinking #Space #People

In the end, it's the people who are curious who change the world.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#People #World #Curious

The universe's destiny has very little to do with the near-term destiny of Earth.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Destiny #Littles #Earth

But the moment the politicians start saying they are in denial of what the scientists are telling them, of what the consensus of scientific experiments demonstrates, that is the beginning of the end of an informed democracy.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Democracy #Denial #Moments

We in astrophysics we think of the universe all the time. So to us, Earth is just another planet. From a distance, it's a speck. And I'm convinced that if everyone had a cosmic perspective you wouldn't have legions of armies waging war on other people because someone would say, "Stop, look at the universe."
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#War #Distance #Army

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.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Ignorance #Knowledge #Humanity

In astrophysics, we care about how matter, motion and energy manifest in objects and phenomenon in the universe. Stars are born. They live out their lives. They die. Some of the ones that die explode. Our sun will not be one of those, but it will die. And it'll take Earth with us. So we make sure we have other destinations in mind when that happens. And I've got it on my calendar.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Stars #Mind #Calendars

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

#Beauty #Taken #Simple

The molecules that comprise our body are traceable to the crucibles of the centers of stars.These atoms and molecules are in us because, in fact, the universe is in us. And, we are not only figuratively, but literally, stardust.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Stars #Crucible #Atoms

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.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Religious #Science #Knowing

The universe is so amazing and so limitless, who wouldn't want to study the universe?
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Want #Study #Limitless

I love the smell of the universe in the morning.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Morning #Smell #Simple Life

Speaking as just simply an American who cares about the economic health of our country, I see one of the surest ways to bring wealth and prosperity to the country is to innovate in science and technology.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Country #Technology #Care

In life and in the universe it's always best to keep looking up.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Universe

I don't even understand why I have 1.7 million Twitter followers. Every day, I want to remind them and say, "Do you realize I'm an astrophysicist? Do you know what you're doing here?"
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Want #Followers #Realizing

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

#Seductive #Done #Practicals

Whatever I am, I'm not as bad as the person that read the novel before watching the film. I'll enjoy whatever they [producers] are putting in front of me. If they made an attempt to get things right, then I'll criticize them for what they got wrong. If they made no attempt to get things right, and yet they stumble on something that's right, I'll comment on what they got right.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Film #Made #Enjoy

George Bush, within a week of this [the 9/11 attacks], in a speech, attempting to distinguish US from the Muslim fundamentalists, said Our God is the God who named the stars. The problem is: two-thirds of all stars that have names, have Arabic names. I don't think he knew this. That would confound the point that he was making.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Stars #Thinking #Names

I'm not criticizing the science in Star Wars. That's a waste of everybody's time.
-- Neil deGrasse Tyson

#Stars #War #Waste

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

#World #Blind #Natural