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Neil deGrasse Tyson
63 quotes
“Yes, the universe had a beginning. Yes, the universe continues to evolve. And yes, every one of our body's atoms is traceable to the big bang and to the thermonuclear furnace within high-mass stars. We are not simply in the universe, we are part of it. We are born from it. One might even say we have been empowered by the universe to figure itself out — and we have only just begun.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) first seen 1998 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Greatest Story Ever Told", in Natural History Magazine (March 1998) · "The Genesis of the Universe" narrated video at Britannica.com
“A few years ago I got a phone call from a marketing executive who wanted to light up the Moon with the logo of her company. She wanted to know how she might proceed. After slamming down the phone, I called her back and politely explained why it was a bad idea. Other corporate executives have asked me how to put into orbit mile-wide luminous banners with catchy slogans written across them, much like the skywriting or flag-dragging airplanes you see at sports events or over the ocean from a crowded beach. I always threaten to send the light police after them.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No matter who you are, engaging in the quest to discover where and how things began tends to induce emotional fervor—as if knowing the beginning bestows upon you some form of fellowship with, or perhaps governance over, all that comes later. 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 (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Cosmologists have plenty of ego — how can a person not be ego-driven when it's your job to deduce what brought the universe into existence? But without data, their explanations were just tall tales. In this modern era of cosmology, each new observation, each morsel of data wields a two-edged sword: it enables cosmology to thrive on the kind of foundation that so much of the rest of science enjoys, but it also constrains theories that people thought up when there wasn't enough data to say whether they were wrong or not. No science achieves maturity without it.Let there be cosmology.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I know that the molecules in my body are traceable to phenomena in the cosmos.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That makes me want to grab people on the street and say, "have you heard this?”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“People cited violation of the First Amendment when a New Jersey schoolteacher asserted that evolution and the Big Bang are not scientific and that Noah's ark carried dinosaurs. This case is not about the need to separate church and state; it's about the need to separate ignorant, scientifically illiterate people from the ranks of teachers.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“George Bush, within a week of this [the 9/11 attacks], gave us a speech, attempting to distinguish 'we' from 'they' … and how does he do it?.... He says "Our god" — of course it’s actually the same God — but that's a detail, lets hold that minor fact aside for the moment. Allah of the muslims is the same God as the God of the Old Testament so he says … "Our God is the God who named the stars" … Here's the problem with his comment … 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 (born 1958) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: I, Skeptic—Modern Skepticism in the Internet Age", The Amaz!ng Meeting 6 keynote speech (June 2008).
“Knowing how things work is important, but I think that's an incomplete view of what science literacy is or, at least, should be. Science literacy is an outlook. It's more of a lens through which you observe what goes on around you.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Some of the most productive times in the histories of nations have been when they were badly stressed — economically, politically, culturally or socially. It's possible to be stressed to a point that more creativity is stimulated than would otherwise be the case. I think it is true that necessity is the mother of invention.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The great tragedy is that they're removing art completely, not because they're putting more science in, but because they can't afford the art teachers or because somebody thinks it's not useful. An enlightened society has all of this going on within it. It's part of what distinguishes what it is to be human from other life forms on Earth — that we have culture.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It has been said that every great emerging scientific truth goes to three phases: First people say: "It can't be true". Second they say: "It conflicts with the bible." Third they say: "It's true all along.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I took two bites, bitch!”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You don't take a dead cat to the vet. I mean you might, but why?”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: WNYC Radio Podcast, RadioLab, "Gravitational Anarchy" November 29, 2010, Minute 16:33.
“Does it mean, if you don’t understand something, and the community of physicists don’t understand it, that means God did it? Is that how you want to play this game? Because if it is, here’s a list of things in the past that the physicists at the time didn’t understand [and now we do understand] [...]. If that’s how you want to invoke your evidence for God, then God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance that’s getting smaller and smaller and smaller as time moves on - so just be ready for that to happen, if that’s how you want to come at the problem.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are people who say "I'll never need this math, these trig identities from 10th grade or 11th grade," or maybe you never learned them. Here's the catch: whether or not you ever again use the math that you learned in school, the act of having learned the math established a wiring in your brain that didn't exist before and it's the wiring in your brain that makes you the problem solver.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Kids are never the problem. They are born scientists. The problem is always the adults. They beat the curiosity out of the kids. They out-number kids. They vote. They wield resources. That's why my public focus is primarily adults.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My view is that if your philosophy is not unsettled daily then you are blind to all the universe has to offer.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (born 1958) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: At an interview with Stephen Colbert at Montclair Kimberley Academy on January 29th, 2010.
“I am trying to convince people--not only the public, but lawmakers and people in power--that investing in the frontier of science, however remote it may seem in its relevance to what you're doing today, is a way of stockpiling the seed corns of future harvests of this nation... Advancing a frontier--history has shown--has advanced a culture ever since the industrial revolution got underway.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: At an interview with Stephen Colbert at Montclair Kimberley Academy on January 29th, 2010.
“Words that make questions may not be questions at all.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: At an interview with Stephen Colbert at Montclair Kimberley Academy on January 29th, 2010, in response to the question "Why is there something instead of nothing", with the constraint of using ten words or less.
“If you start wielding a hammer, then all your problems look like nails. And maybe they’re not. Maybe it's more subtle than that. And so your toolkit has to be able to morph into what is necessary for what it is that you confront at that moment.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: At an interview with Stephen Colbert at Montclair Kimberley Academy on January 29th, 2010.
“I could just tell you it's all bunk; but then you wouldn't be empowered to understand why. Other than to quote, "Oh, Doctor Tyson said..." And I never want you to quote me citing my authority as a scientist for your knowing something. If that's what you have to resort to I have failed as an educator. As an educator, it's my duty to empower you to think. So that you can go forth and think accurate thoughts about how the world is put together. Inoculating you against the [people] out there who will exploit your ignorance on anything they possibly can.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Neil DeGrasse Tyson Debunks 2012 Armageddon after the James Webb telescope panel discussion in Battery Park at the World Science Festival, June 4th, 2010
“Within one linear centimeter of your lower colon there lives and works more bacteria (about 100 billion) than all humans who have ever been born. Yet many people continue to assert that it is we who are in charge of the world.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The problem, often not discovered until late in life, is that when you look for things like love, meaning, motivation, it implies they are sitting behind a tree or under a rock. The most successful people 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 along the way, lessen the suffering of others. You'd be surprised how far that gets you.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are street artists. Street musicians. Street actors. But there are no street physicists. A little known secret is that a physicist is one of the most employable people in the marketplace - a physicist is a trained problem solver. How many times have you heard a person in a workplace say, "I wasn't trained for this!" That's an impossible reaction from a physicist, who would say, instead, "Cool. A problem I've never seen before. Let's see how I can figure out how to solve it!" Oh, and, have fun along the way.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What is NASA's mission? Is it to beat the russians? Is it to inspire?”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) first seen 2017 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: An intro talk published by Primate on Jan 17, 2017
“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 (born 1958) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Twitter post, (2015-03-03)
“All I can say is, the universe is in a good shape, it's earth that has all the problems.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Neil DeGrasse Tyson talks to CNN's Van Jones about climate change and the intersection of science with the military and politics. (2018-10-14)
“As important as Steve Jobs was, no doubt about it — [and] you have to add him to Bill Gates, because they birthed the personal computing revolution kind of together — here's the difference: Elon Musk is trying to invent a future, not by providing the next app.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This universality of physical laws drives scientific discovery like nothing else.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Cosmologists have plenty of ego. How could you not when your job is to deduce what brought the universe into existence?”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In our own solar system, for example, everything that is not the Sun adds up to less than one fifth of one percent of the Sun’s mass.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Other unrelenting skeptics might declare that “seeing is believing”—an approach to life that works well in many endeavors, including mechanical engineering, fishing, and perhaps dating. It’s also good, apparently, for residents of Missouri. But it doesn’t make for good science. Science is not just about seeing, it’s about measuring, preferably with something that’s not your own eyes, which are inextricably conjoined with the baggage of your brain. That baggage is more often than not a satchel of preconceived ideas, post-conceived notions, and outright bias.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Personally, I am quite comfortable with chemicals, anywhere in the universe. My favorite stars, as well as my best friends, are all made of them.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Of all the sciences cultivated by mankind, Astronomy is acknowledged to be, and undoubtedly is, the most sublime, the most interesting, and the most useful. For, by knowledge derived from this science, not only the bulk of the Earth is discovered . . . ; but our very faculties are enlarged with the grandeur of the ideas it conveys, our minds exalted above [their] low contracted prejudices.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When I pore over the data that establish the mysterious presence of dark matter and dark energy throughout the universe, sometimes I forget that every day—every twenty-four-hour rotation of Earth—people kill and get killed in the name of someone else’s conception of God, and that some people who do not kill in the name of God, kill in the name of needs or wants of political dogma.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If a huge genetic gap separated us from our closest relative in the animal kingdom, we could justifiably celebrate our brilliance. We might be entitled to walk around thinking we’re distant and distinct from our fellow creatures. But no such gap exists. Instead, we are one with the rest of nature, fitting neither above nor below, but within.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“in Space where there ain't no gravity, helicopter dick really do be a way to travel.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“... the anatomy of a sound bite is—it's gotta be interesting. And it's gotta be tasty. It should also be a little bit fun to hear ... so that you smile. And it's gotta have enough of all that to want to tell someone else that you just learned something. ... I have a master class on thinking like a scientist and how to communicate what you know in your expertise to others.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Science is a cooperative enterprise spanning the generations. It's the passing of a torch from teacher to student to teacher; a community of minds reaching back to antiquity and forward to the stars. (From the first Cosmos: ASO episode, Standing Up in the Milky Way.)”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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. (From the second Cosmos: ASO episode, Some of the Things That Molecules Do.)”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Halley shattered their monopoly, beating them at their own game. A game that no scientist had ever played before: Prophecy. -S01E03”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ibn al-Haytham was the first person ever to set down the rules of science. -S01E05”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“During our brief stay on planet Earth, we owe ourselves and our descendants the opportunity to explore—in part because it's fun to do. But there's a far nobler reason. The day our knowledge of the cosmos ceases to expand, we risk regressing to the childish view that the universe figuratively and literally revolves around us. In that bleak world, arms-bearing, resource-hungry people and nations would be prone to act on their "low contracted prejudices." And that would be the last gasp of human enlightenment—until the rise of a visionary new culture that could once again embrace the cosmic perspective.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Creativity is seeing what everyone else sees, but then thinking a new thought that has never been thought before and expressing it somehow. It could be with art, a sculpture, music or even in science. The difference, however, between scientific creativity and any other kind of creativity, is that no matter how long you wait, no one else will ever compose "Beethoven's Ninth Symphony" except for Beethoven. No matter what you do, no one else will paint Van Gogh's "Starry Night." Only Van Gogh could do that because it came from his creativity.Whereas in science, you can't just make stuff up and presume that it is a proper account of nature. At the end of the day, you have to answer to nature. Since everyone has nature to answer to, your creativity is simply discovering something about the natural world that somebody else would have eventually discovered exactly the same way. They might have come through a different path, but they would have landed in the same place.Even though we name theorems and equations after the people who discover them — Newton's laws of gravity, Kepler's laws of planetary motion — somebody else would have discovered them afterward. It's that simple. Your creativity is not a boundless creativity.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson (born 1958) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source