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Quotations by Neil deGrasse Tyson

Yes, the universe had a beginning - 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.

Kids are never the problem - 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.

The best educators are the ones that inspire - The best educators are the ones that inspire their students. That inspiration comes from a passion that teachers have for the subject they're teaching. Most commonly, that person spent their lives studying that subject, and they bring an infectious enthusiasm to the audience. I think many people have that enthusiasm, but they are prevented from being teachers because they didn't go through the teacher mill. Now you have teachers who have been through the teacher mill, yet they have no capacity to inspire anyone at all. It's the inspired student that continues to learn on their own. That's what separates the real achievers in the world from those who pedal along, finishing assignments.

In life they create their own love - The problem, often not discovered until late in life, is that when you look for things in life like love, meaning, motivation, it implies they are sitting behind a tree or under a rock. The most successful people in life 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 lessen the suffering of others. You'd be surprised how far that gets you.

The more I learn about the universe - 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.

School teacher asserts that evolution and big bang are not scientific - People cited violation of the First Amendment when a New Jersey school teacher 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.

One of the biggest problems with the world today - One of the biggest problems with the world today is that we have large groups of people who will accept whatever they hear on the grapevine, just because it suits their worldview--not because it is actually true or because they have evidence to support it. The really striking thing is that it would not take much effort to establish validity in most of these cases… but people prefer reassurance to research.

Knowing how to think empowers - Knowing how to think empowers you far beyond those who know only what to think.

Becoming better at something - Whether or not you can never become great at something, you can always become better at it. Don't ever forget that! And don't say “I'll never be good”. You can become better! and one day you'll wake up and you'll find out how good you actually became.

Ignorance is a virus - 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.

Our academic system rewards people who know lots - Our academic system rewards people who know a lot of stuff and generally we call those people smart, but at the end of the day who do you want- the person who can figure things out that they've never seen before or the person who can rattle off a bunch of facts?

Drivers of space exploration - I think we are in a little bit of a moon race even if no one admits it publicly. China has met good on every one of their promises when they said, "We're going to put an astronaut, a taikonaut into orbit." They did that. They're going to build a space station, they're doing that. And so they want to say, declare they want to go to the moon, we should really take them seriously. If we feel threatened by that in any way, this is the kind of response that that triggers. That's why we went to the moon in the first place. Our cleansed memory of that period is, "Oh we're Americans and we're explorers." Well, we were in the middle of a Cold War, and we got scared when Russia, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, and we had to respond in some way for our own dignity, for our own place in the world. So a lot of things drive space exploration beyond just scientific motives.

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