“The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.”
— Neil deGrasse Tyson
“The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.”
“We are all connected; To each other, biologically. To the earth, chemically. To the rest of the universe atomically.”
“Not only do we live among the stars, the stars live within us.”
“Knowing how to think empowers you far beyond those who know only what to think.”
“There's as many atoms in a single molecule of your DNA as there are stars in the typical galaxy. We are, each of us, a little universe.”
“Math is the language of the universe. So the more equations you know, the more you can converse with the cosmos.”
“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.”
“Curious that we spend more time congratulating people who have succeeded than encouraging people who have not.”
“When students cheat on exams it’s because our school system values grades more than students value learning.”
“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.”
“Follow the evidence wherever it leads, and question everything.”
“Science reveals that all life on Earth is one.”
“Everyone should have their mind blown once a day.”
“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.”
“Dinosaurs are extinct today because they lacked opposable thumbs and the brainpower to build a space program.”
“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.”
“If you’re scientifically literate, the world looks very different to you, and that understanding empowers you.”
“I think of space not as the final frontier but as the next frontier. Not as something to be conquered but to be explored.”
“The remarkable feature of physical laws is that they apply everywhere, whether or not you choose to believe in them. After the laws of physics, everything else is opinion.”
“There is no greater education than one that is self-driven.”
“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.”
“I dream of a world where the truth is what shapes people’s politics, rather than politics shaping what people think is true.”
“We are not figuratively, but literally Stardust.”
“Photography is a form of time travel.”
“If your belief system is not founded in an objective reality, you should not be making decisions that affect other people.”
“Pretending to know everything closes the door to finding out what’s really there.”
“The day we stop exploring is the day we commit ourselves to live in a stagnant world, devoid of curiosity, empty of dreams.”
“When you are a hammer, all of your problems will look like nails to you.”
“As areas of knowledge grow, so too do the perimeters of ignorance.”
“If you want to assert a truth, first make sure it’s not just an opinion that you desperately want to be true.”
“One thing in life is for certain, the more profoundly baffled you have been in your life, the more open your mind becomes to new ideas.”
“Science literacy is a vaccine against the charlatans of the world that would exploit your ignorance.”
“Relativity. Gravity. Quantum. Electrodynamics. Evolution. Each of these theories is true, whether or not you believe in them.”
“Intelligent design is a philosophy of ignorance.”
“If we have the power to turn another planet into Earth, then we have the power to turn Earth back into Earth.”
“All information is good, even when it is bad.”
“Aliens might be surprised to learn that in a cosmos with limitless starlight, humans kill for energy sources buried in the sand.”
“I think the best thing a parent can do, when raising a child, is simply get out of their way.”
“Space exploration is a force of nature unto itself that no other force in society can rival.”
“It’s my duty to enlighten people.”
“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.”
“On this day long ago, a child was born who, by age 30, would transform the world. Happy Birthday Isaac Newton b. Dec 25, 1642.”
“Feeling a little small? Well, in the context of the cosmos, we are small.”
“The most successful people recognize that in life they create their own love, they manufacture their own meaning, they generate their own motivation.”
“Science is like an inoculation against charlatans who would have you believe whatever it is they tell you.”
“In life and in the universe it’s always best to keep looking up.”
“Give a kid a book, and you change the world. In a way, even the universe.”
“Science is a way of equipping yourself with the tools to interpret what happens in front of you.”
“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.”
“I’m often asked whether I believe in Global Warming. I now just reply with the question: “Do you believe in Gravity?””
“The greatest of people that have ever been in society, they were never versions of someone else. They were themselves.”
“Down there between our legs, it’s like an entertainment complex in the middle of a sewage system. Who designed that?”
“The only way you can invent tomorrow is if you break out of the enclosure that the school system has provided for you by the exams written by people who are trained in another generation.”
“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?”
“Our five senses are faulty data-taking devices, and they need help.”
“For your own safety, do not ever tell an astrophysicist, I hope all your stars are twinkling.”
“No one is dumb who is curious.”
“Perhaps these ancient observatories like Stonehenge perennially impress modern people because modern people have no idea how the Sun, Moon, or stars move. We are too busy watching evening television to care what’s going on in the sky.”
“I think if everyone had the luxury to pursue a life of exactly what they love, we would all be ranked as visionaries and brilliant.”
“People like it when they understand something that they previously thought they couldn’t understand. It’s a sense of empowerment.”
“So maybe part of our formal education should be training in empathy. Imagine how different the world would be if, in fact, that were ‘reading, writing, arithmetic, empathy.’”
“Science is a philosophy of discovery. Intelligent design is a philosophy of ignorance. You cannot build a program of discovery on the assumption that nobody is smart enough to figure out the answer to a problem.”
“What are the lessons to be learned from this journey of the mind through the universe? That humans are emotionally fragile, perennially gullible, hopelessly ignorant masters of an insignificantly small speck in the cosmos. Have a nice day.”
“Does the full moon affect people’s behavior, you ask? Yup. It makes people think the full moon affects people’s behavior.”
“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.”
“Scientific inquiry shouldn’t stop just because a reasonable explanation has apparently been found.”
“My view is that if your philosophy is not unsettled daily then you are blind to all the universe has to offer.”
“Quantum physics fluctuates all the time. But now the fluctuations are not just particles coming into and out of existence, which happens all the time. It’s whole universes coming into and out of existence.”
“We are star dust in the highest exalted way, called by the universe, reaching out to the universe.”
“What would aliens say when told earthlings shift clocks twice a year to fool themselves into thinking there’s more sunlight?”
“What I’m saying is, when different experiments give you the same result, it is no longer subject to your opinion. That’s the good thing about science: It’s true whether or not you believe in it. That’s why it works.”
“Society needs to see science not as a luxury of funding but as a fundamental activity that drives enlightenment, economics, and security.”
“Our nation is turning into an idiocracy.”
“Whenever people have used religious documents to make accurate predictions about our base knowledge of the physical world, they have been famously wrong.”
“As children we all wonder – we wonder all the time. And that gets lost in adulthood. It gets beaten out, it gets filtered out or diluted out.”
“I’m a little fatigued of adults saying we’ve got to worry about the kids. And these are the same adults that don’t know science and are running things and wielding resources and legislation.”
“In the animal kingdom, one of the keys to survival is to outwit your enemies. And when you’re surrounded by carnivores, one of the best strategies is to fade into the background and disappear.”
“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.”
“Physics is the only profession in which prophecy is not only accurate but routine.”
“Claiming there is no other life in the universe is like scooping up some water, looking at the cup and claiming there are no whales in the ocean.”
“I’ve known from long ago that the universe was calling me. If you were one of those annoying adults that said, ‘Oh, what are you gonna be when you grow up?’ I would say, ‘Astrophysicist .’ And then they’d walk away real quickly.”
“In physics, opinions don’t matter, only demonstrated experiments. The day the fellow succeeds, if ever, he won’t need anybody else’s opinion.”
“Let us not fool ourselves into thinking we went to the Moon because we are pioneers, or discoverers, or adventurers. We went to the Moon because it was the militaristically expedient thing to do.”
“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.”
“That is a big question we all have: are we alone in the universe? And exoplanets confirm the suspicion that planets are not rare.”
“Astronauts are the only kind of celebrity I know who can have a line of people waiting for their autograph, even if the line of people does not know in advance the astronaut’s name.”
“The typical person has no trouble believing without knowing. What people need to realize is simply that you do not need to believe to know.”
“I agree that we should go back to the moon and on to Mars. We should treat all objects in the solar system, including comets and asteroids, as exploration targets.”
“The first colony on Mars is not going to be built by a private company. How are you going to make money? You’re not.”
“You can make a stack high enough to reach the moon and back, and only then will you have used your 100 billion hamburgers. This is terrifying news to cows.”
“Like no other science, astrophysics cross-pollinate s the expertise of chemists, biologists, geologists and physicists, all to discover the past, present, and future of the cosmos-and our humble place within it.”
“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.”
“If there were biologists among the extremophiles organisms that live in extreme conditions, they would surely classify themselves as normal and any life that thrived in room temperature as an extremophile.”
“It’s short-sighted to think ads won’t one day end up wherever humans are – even the moon.”
“In any city with lots of skyscrapers, lots of skyline, the moon seems bigger than it is. It’s called the moon illusion.”
“Unlike what you may be told in other sectors of life, when observing the universe, size does matter, which often leads to polite ‘telescope envy’ at gatherings of amateur astronomers.”
“When everyone agrees to a single solution and a single plan, there’s nothing more efficient in the world than an efficient democracy.”
“Access to science is greater than ever before. There are more vehicles out there that grant the public access to science. Not to mention the Internet.”
“We’re talking about a being whose very existence challenges our own sense of priority in the universe.”
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