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" 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. "

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" Fortunately, there's another handy driver that has manifested itself throughout the history of cultures. The urge to want to gain wealth. That is almost as potent a driver as the urge to maintain your security. And that is how I view NASA going forward - as an investment in our economy. "

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Forward

History

Wealth

" I'm often asked - and occasionally in an accusatory way - 'Are you atheist?' And it's like, 'You know, the only 'ist' I am is a scientist, all right?' I don't associate with movements. I'm not an 'ism.' I just - I think for myself. "

" If you only think of me during Black History Month, I must be failing as an educator and as an astrophysicist. "

" We think scientific literacy flows out of how many science facts can you recite rather than how was your brain wired for thinking. And it's the brain wiring that I'm more interested in rather than the facts that come out of the curriculum or the lesson plan that's been proposed. "

" There's a lot of memorization that goes on in school. You memorize vocabulary words and all these sorts of things. "

" If the only time you think of me as a scientist is during Black History Month, then I must not be doing my job as a scientist. "

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Time

Black

" Carl Sagan spoke fluently between biology and geology and astrophysics and physics. If you move fluently across those boundaries, you realize that science is everywhere; science is not something you can step around or sweep under the rug. "

" One of my great laments is that education today seems to have... be less about passion and more about process, more about tactic or technique. "

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Great

Education

" If you think of feelings you have when you are awed by something - for example, knowing that elements in your body trace to exploded stars - I call that a spiritual reaction, speaking of awe and majesty, where words fail you. "

" To make any future that we dreamt up real requires creative scientists, engineers, and technologists to make it happen. If people are not within your midst who dream about tomorrow - with the capacity to bring tomorrow into the present - then the country might as well just recede back into the cave because that's where we're headed. "

" When everyone agrees to a single solution and a single plan, there's nothing more efficient in the world than an efficient democracy. "

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Plan

Solution

" You can't train kids in a world where adults have no concept of what science literacy is. The adults are gonna squash the creativity that would manifest itself, because they're clueless about what it and why it matters. But science can always benefit from the more brains there are that are thinking about it - but that's true for any field. "

" Typically, when you look for role models, you want someone who has your interests and came from the same background. Well, look how restricting that is. What people should do is take role models a la carte. If there's someone whose character you appreciated, you respect that trait. "

" I don't comment on the physics errors of 'Star Wars,' all right. I just - you let that one go. "

" If you slid Pluto to where Earth is right now, heat from the sun would evaporate that ice, and it would grow a tail. Now that's no kind of behavior for a planet. "

" As a scientist, I want to go to Mars and back to asteroids and the Moon because I'm a scientist. But I can tell you, I'm not so naive a scientist to think that the nation might not have geopolitical reasons for going into space. "

" Science is an enterprise that should be cherished as an activity of the free human mind. Because it transforms who we are, how we live, and it gives us an understanding of our place in the universe. "

" I lose sleep at night wondering whether we are intelligent enough to figure out the universe. I don't know. "

" Not enough people in this world, I think, carry a cosmic perspective with them. It could be life-changing. "

" Philosophically, 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. "

" The history of exploration across nations and across time is not one where nations said, 'Let's explore because it's fun.' It was, 'Let's explore so that we can claim lands for our country, so that we can open up new trade routes; let's explore so we can become more powerful.' "

" Every day, I wake up and I say, 'Why... how... did I end up with 1.7 million Twitter followers?' It's freaky to me, every day, but that tells me that there's an appetite out there that had previously been underserved. There's an inner geek in us all, an inner bit of curiosity that people are discovering, and they like it. "

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Day

Curiosity

" For most of human civilization, the pace of innovation has been so slow that a generation might pass before a discovery would influence your life, culture or the conduct of nations. "

" Every account of a higher power that I've seen described, of all religions that I've seen, include many statements with regard to the benevolence of that power. When I look at the universe and all the ways the universe wants to kill us, I find it hard to reconcile that with statements of beneficence. "

" It was unthinkable not long ago that a biologist or paleontologist would be at the same conference as an astrophysicist. Now we have accumulated so much data in each of these branches of science as it relates to origins that we have learned that no one discipline can answer questions of origins alone. "

" Any astrophysicist does not feel small looking up at the universe; we feel large. "

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Does

Universe

" I'm often asked by parents what advice can I give them to help get kids interested in science? And I have only one bit of advice. Get out of their way. Kids are born curious. Period. "

" I know of no time in human history where ignorance was better than knowledge. "

" All the nine-planet people out there: Get over it. There's eight. "

" You can't come away with this cosmic perspective thinking that you are better than others and want to fight. That's why you'll never have astrophysicists leading nations into war. "