Neil DeGrasse Tyson Quotes

In the New Testament, Thomas Jefferson cut out everything that was mystical, magical, miracle - physically with scissors - and then pasted in all that remained, such as Jesus's Sermon on the Mount.

When NASA dreams big America dreams big. People...kids say, 'I want to do that when I grow up'. Because you want to do what's visible to you.

If each dead person became a ghost, there'd be more than 100 billion of them haunting us all. Creepy, but cool.

I think the best thing a parent can do, when raising a child, is simply get out of their way.

Imagine a world in which we are all enlightened by objective truths rather than offended by them.

Italy valued cathedrals while Spain valued explorers. So worldwide, five times as many people speak Spanish than Italian.

If we have the power to turn another planet into Earth, then we have the power to turn Earth back into Earth.

Perhaps we’ve never been visited by aliens because they have looked upon earth and decided there’s no sign of intelligent life.

Facts are true whether or not you believe them.

I know that the molecules in my body are traceable to phenomena in the cosmos. That makes me want to grab people on the street and say: ‘Have you HEARD THIS?

The universe is almost 14 billion years old, and, wow! Life had no problem starting here on Earth! I think it would be inexcusably egocentric of us to suggest that we're alone in the universe.

... there is no shame in not knowing. The problem arises when irrational thought and attendant behavior fill the vacuum left by ignorance.

The more I learn about the universe, the less convinced I am that there's any sort of benevolent force that has anything to do with it, at all.

Dinosaurs are extinct today because they lacked opposable thumbs and the brainpower to build a space program.

My view is that if your philosophy is not unsettled daily then you are blind to all the universe has to offer.

I can't tell you how many people say they were turned off from science because of a science teacher that completely sucked out all the inspiration and enthusiasm they had for the course.

Some of the greatest poetry is revealing to the reader the beauty in something that was so simple you had taken it for granted.

Space exploration is a force of nature unto itself that no other force in society can rival.

Space in general gave us GPS - that's not specifically NASA, but it's investments in space.

Our nation is turning into an idiocracy.

When your reasons for believing something are justified ad hoc, you are left susceptible to further discoveries undermining the rationale for that belief.

You don't take a dead cat to the vet. I mean you might, but why?

I think we are all the sum of that which has happened in our lives. And if you're successful, it would be wrong to think that you'd be more successful had something been easier. That's not a given.

You gotta be a good sport! So when I would lose, I would say, "That guy was better than I was; what do I have to do to be better next time?"

Next time you're stunned by a large moon on the horizon, bend over and view it between your legs. The effect goes away entirely.

I love the future we might invent for ourselves that I have not yet dreamt of.

Like a snowplow in overdrive, a supernova shockwave might sweep away any gas clouds in its path.

I remain unconvinced that anything other than rapid decomposition is the fate of my body and mind after death.

For me, the most fascinating interface is Twitter. I have odd cosmic thoughts every day and I realized I could hold them to myself or share them with people who might be interested.

You know, dark matter matters.

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.

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.

If you're scientifically literate, the world looks very different to you, and that understanding empowers you.

Whenever people have used religious documents to make accurate predictions about our base knowledge of the physical world, they have been famously wrong.

Climate change has taken on political dimensions. That's odd because I don't see people choosing sides over E=Mc2 or other fundamental facts of science.

I want people to see that the cosmic perspective is simultaneously honest about the universe we live in and uplifting, when we realize how far we have come and how wonderful is this world of ours.

They [scientists of centuries past] call on God only from the lonely and precarious edge of incomprehension. Where they feel certain about their explanations, however, God gets hardly a mention.

Does the full moon affect people's behavior, you ask? Yup. It makes people think the full moon affects people's behavior.

Kids should be allowed to break stuff more often. That's a consequence of exploration. Exploration is what you do when you don't know what you're doing.

Not only do we live among the stars, the stars live within us.

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.

I'm fascinated by the deaths of stars and the havoc they wreak on their environments.

What would aliens say when told earthlings shift clocks twice a year to fool themselves into thinking there's more sunlight?

When scientifically investigating the natural world, the only thing worse than a blind believer is a seeing denier.

Doing what has never been done before is intellectually seductive, whether or not we deem it practical.

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.

Newton came up with Newton's laws of motion and gravity. They worked. They were working.

If you find life on Europa [Jupiter's moon], like, what would you call it? Would it be, like, Europeans?

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.

One should not be too distracted by definitions. Ideas transcend definitions.