Quotes from Neil deGrasse Tyson

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.

Science needs the light of free expression to flourish. It depends on the fearless questioning of authority, and the open exchange of ideas.

For reasons I have yet to understand, many people don't like chemicals, which might explain the perennial movement to rid foods of them. <...> 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.

The more of us that feel the universe, the better off we will be in this world.

Science is a philosophy of discovery. Intelligent design is a philosophy of ignorance.

In modern times, if the sole measure of what's out there flows from your five senses then a precarious life awaits you.

If humans one day become extinct from a catastrophic collision, there would be no greater tragedy in the history of life in the universe. Not because we lacked the brain power to protect ourselves but because we lacked the foresight. The dominant species that replaces us in post-apocalyptic Earth just might wonder, as they gaze upon our mounted skeletons in their natural history museums, why large-headed Homo sapiens fared no better than the proverbially pea-brained dinosaurs.

You know that passage in the Bible that says, "And the meek shall inherit the Earth"? Always wondered if that was mistranslated. Perhaps it actually says, "And the geek shall inherit the Earth.

When you visit countries that don't nurture these kinds of ambitions, you can feel th absence of hope...people are reduced to worrying only about that day's shelter or the next day's meal. It's a shame, even a tragedy, how many people do not get to think about the future. Technology coupled with wise leadership not only solves these problems but enables dreams of tomorow.

Some molecules - ammonia, carbon dioxide, water - show up everywhere in the universe, whether life is present or not. But others pop up especially in the presence of life itself. Among the biomarkers in Earth's atmosphere are ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbons from aerosol sprays, vapor from mineral solvents, escaped coolants from refrigerators and air conditioners, and smog from the burning of fossil fuels. No other way to read that list: sure signs of the absence of intelligence.

In other words, after the laws of physics, everything else is opinion.

There are no limits when you are surrounded by people who believe in you, or by people whose expectations are not set by the short-sighted attitudes of society, or by people who help to open doors of opportunity, not close them.

Matter tells space how to curve; space tells matter how to move.?

I don't have an issue with what you do in the church, but I'm gonna be up in your face if you're gonna 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 gonna fight!

In the beginning, there was physics.

It's okay not to know all the answers. It's better to admit our ignorance than to believe answers that might be wrong. Pretending to know everything, closes the door to finding out what's really there.

One of the great challenges in life is knowing enough to think you're right but not enough to know you're wrong

Science literacy is an important part of what it is to be an informed citizen of society.

What are the lessons to be learned from this journey of the mind? That humans are emotionally fragile, perennially gullible, hopelessly ignorant masters of an insignificantly small speck in the cosmos. Have a nice day.

Time to get cosmic. There are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on any beach, more stars than seconds have passed since Earth formed, more stars than words and sounds ever uttered by all the humans who ever lived.

The most accessible field in science, from the point of view of language, is astrophysics. What do you call spots on the sun? Sunspots. Regions of space you fall into and you don't come out of? Black holes. Big red stars? Red giants. So I take my fellow scientists to task. He'll use his word, and if I understand it, I'll say, "Oh, does that mean da-da-da-de-da?

The cosmic perspective shows Earth to be a mote. But it's a precious mote and, for the moment, it's the only home we have.

informed ignorance provides the natural state of mind for research scientists at the ever-shifting frontiers of knowledge. People who believe themselves ignorant of nothing have neither looked for, nor stumbled upon, the boundary between what is known and unknown in the cosmos.

we live on a cosmic speck of dust, orbiting a mediocre star in the far suburbs of a common sort of galaxy, among a hundred billion galaxies in the universe.