Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" The solar system should be viewed as our backyard, not as some sequence of destinations that we do one at a time. "

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Related Quotes:

" The problem is that many people operate on the assumption that NASA should go to Congress every year with hat in hand and justify it every year. Well, I see it as the greatest economic driver that there ever was. Economic drivers don't need justification. "

Neil deGrasse Tyson

" You've never seen me debate anybody. On anything. Ever. My investment of time, as an educator, in my judgment, is best served teaching people how to think about the world around them. Teach them how to pose a question. How to judge whether one thing is true versus another. What the laws of physics say. "

Neil deGrasse Tyson

" When Kennedy said, 'Let's go to the moon,' we didn't yet have a vehicle that wouldn't kill you on launch. He said we'll land a man on the moon in eight years and bring him back. That was an audacious goal to put forth in front of the American people. "

Neil deGrasse Tyson

" I don't want to be the embarrassment of the galaxy to have had the power to deflect an asteroid, and then not and end up going extinct. We'd be the laughingstock of the aliens of the cosmos if that were the case. "

Neil deGrasse Tyson

" There's something about witnessing something in the sky that makes people think they're seeing something unique or special. I don't really understand the psychology of it, to be honest. "

Neil deGrasse Tyson

" The Venus transit is not a spectacle the way a total solar eclipse is a spectacle. "

Neil deGrasse Tyson

" The history of exploration has never been driven by exploration. But Columbus himself was a discoverer. So was Magellan. But the people who wrote checks were not. They had other motivations. "

Neil deGrasse Tyson

" I don't care what town you're born in, what city, what country. If you're a child, you are curious about your environment. You're overturning rocks. You're plucking leaves off of trees and petals off of flowers, looking inside, and you're doing things that create disorder in the lives of the adults around you. "

Neil deGrasse Tyson

" I'm not as famous as Stephen Hawking, but certainly in the U.S., I have a very high profile for a scientist. It is an awesome responsibility, one that I don't shoulder lightly. "

Neil deGrasse Tyson

" Any time scientists disagree, it's because we have insufficient data. Then we can agree on what kind of data to get; we get the data; and the data solves the problem. Either I'm right, or you're right, or we're both wrong. And we move on. That kind of conflict resolution does not exist in politics or religion. "

Neil deGrasse Tyson

" 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. "

Neil deGrasse Tyson

" Just think for how long humanity was controlled by mystical, magical thinking - the diseases and suffering that led to. We managed to survive, but just barely. It wasn't pretty. "

Neil deGrasse Tyson

" Pluto's orbit is so elongated that it crosses the orbit of another planet. Now that's... you've got no business doing that if you want to call yourself a planet. Come on, now! There's something especially transgressive about that. "

Neil deGrasse Tyson

" You have people who believe they are scientifically literate but, in fact, are not. And I don't mind if you're not scientifically literate, but just admit that to yourself, so that you'll know, and perhaps you can take a first step to try to eradicate that. "

Neil deGrasse Tyson

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

Neil deGrasse Tyson

" I want to know what dark matter and dark energy are comprised of. They remain a mystery, a complete mystery. No one is any closer to solving the problem than when these two things were discovered. "

Neil deGrasse Tyson

" I was transformed by picking up a pair of binoculars and looking up, and that's hard to do for a city kid because when you look up you just see buildings - and really, your first thought is to look in people's windows. So to look out of the space - out of living space - and look up to the sky, binoculars go far, literally and figuratively. "

Neil deGrasse Tyson

" Part of what it is to be scientifically-literate, it's not simply, 'Do you know what DNA is? Or what the Big Bang is?' That's an aspect of science literacy. The biggest part of it is do you know how to think about information that's presented in front of you. "

Neil deGrasse Tyson

" When you innovate, you create new industries that then boost your economy. And when you create new industries and that becomes part of your culture, your jobs can't go overseas because no one else has figured out how to do it yet. "

Neil deGrasse Tyson

" 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

" We explore our environment, more than we are compelled to utter poetry, when we're toddlers. We start doing that later. Before that happens, every child is a scientist. "

Neil deGrasse Tyson

" 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

" I think the greatest of people in society carved niches that represented the unique expression of their combinations of talents, and if everyone had the luxury of expressing the unique combinations of talents in this world, our society would be transformed overnight. "

Neil deGrasse Tyson

" Being at the top of your game intellectually, philosophically, politically, is not a forever thing. "

Neil deGrasse Tyson

" Although I'm not actually embarrassed by this, I tend not to read books that have awesome movies made from them, regardless of how well or badly the movie represented the actual written story. "

Neil deGrasse Tyson

" 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. "

Neil deGrasse Tyson

" 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. "

Neil deGrasse Tyson

" I was born the same week NASA was founded, so we're the same age and feel some of the same pains, joys, and frustrations. "

Neil deGrasse Tyson

" 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

" What you need, above all else, is a love for your subject, whatever it is. You've got to be so deeply in love with your subject that when curve balls are thrown, when hurdles are put in place, you've got the energy to overcome them. "

Neil deGrasse Tyson