Quotes from Neil deGrasse Tyson

Nowadays our mobile phones relay microwaves.

The cosmic perspective enables us to grasp, in the same thought, the large and the small, from a universe that began in a space far tinier than the period at the end of this sentence to one that is now many billions of light-years across.

The cosmic perspective helps us to see beyond our circumstances, allowing us to realize that life is about more than money, popularity, clothes, sports, or even grades.

Detecting without seeing was now a scientific reality.

The cosmic perspective shows us that the very atoms and particles that make up our bodies are spread across the universe itself, making us one and the same.

Some species of snakes have small pits on their heads that pick up infrared rays from tasty warm-blooded prey, readily revealed at night against the rapidly cooling surroundings

Allow there to be a spectrum in all that you see.

If you don't have avocados, you can't make guacamole.

Starry Messenger is a wake-up call to civilization. People no longer know who or what to trust. We sow hatred of others fueled by what we think is true, or what we want to be true, without regard to what is true. Cultural and political factions battle for the souls of communities and of nations. We've lost all sight of what distinguishes facts from opinions. We're quick with acts of aggression and slow with acts of kindness.

Shakespeare's Macbeth: "Fear not, till Birnam wood / Do come to Dunsinane").

One thing quarks do have going for them: all their names are simple—something chemists, biologists, and especially geologists seem incapable of achieving when naming their own stuff.

Even when arguing opinions, you may be surprised how potent a rational perspective can be. When illuminated by it, you fast discover that Earth supports not many tribes, but only one—the human tribe. That's when many disagreements soften, while others simply evaporate, leaving you with nothing to argue about in the first place.

For reasons I have yet to understand, many people don't like chemicals, which might explain the perennial movement to rid foods of them. Perhaps sesquipedalian chemical names just sound dangerous. But in that case we should blame the chemists, and not the chemicals themselves. 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. †

As the saying goes, we spend the first years of children's lives teaching them to talk and walk, and the rest of their lives telling them to shut up and sit down.

after the laws of physics, everything else is opinion.

The seven largest emitters of fossil fuels—the United States, the European Union, China, Russia, Japan, India, and China

All this leaves me wondering what it means to be aligned with a political party at all. Do they do your thinking for you? Do they define your attitudes toward issues that confront the country? If so, then you are a pawn of those in power. But in a representative republic, those in power should be a pawn of you.

Another readily detected biomarker is Earth's sustained level of the molecule methane, two thirds of which is produced by human-related activities...[including] burps and farts of domestic livestock. Natural sources...include decomposing vegetation in wetlands, and termite effluences. At this very moment, astrobiologists are arguing over the exact origin of...the copious quantities of methane on Saturn's moon Titan, where cows and termites we presume do not dwell.

It's no secret that people will give their lives, or take the lives of others, in support of what they believe. Often the less actual evidence that exists in support of an ideology, the more likely a person is willing to die for the cause.

Anyone who can't afford to depend on serendipity would say you have to identify your target or goal in advance.

we shouldn't reshape our science just to avoid confusing the public

ignorance is the natural state of mind for a research scientist. People who believe they are ignorant of nothing have neither looked for, nor stumbled upon, the boundary between what is known and unknown in the universe.

the Disney pantheon that if you wear clothes, you can own other animals who do not

Earth's Moon is about 1/400th the diameter of the Sun, but it is also 1/400th as far from us, making the Sun and the Moon the same size on the sky—a coincidence not shared by any other planet–moon combination in the solar system, allowing for uniquely photogenic total solar eclipses. Earth