FREDRIKA S. > FREDRIKA's Quotes

“I would teach how science works as much as I would teach what science knows. I would assert (given that essentially, everyone will learn to read) that science literacy is the most important kind of literacy they can take into the 21st century. I would undervalue grades based on knowing things and find ways to reward curiosity. In the end, it's the people who are curious who change the world.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson

“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.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson

“We do not simply live in this universe. The universe lives within us.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry

“When scientifically investigating the natural world, the only thing worse than a blind believer is a seeing denier.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson, Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries

“The power and beauty of physical laws is that they apply everywhere, whether or not you choose to believe in them. In other words, after the laws of physics, everything else is opinion.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry

“When asked about which scientist he'd like to meet, Neil deGrasse Tyson said, "Isaac Newton. No question about it. The smartest person ever to walk the face of this earth. The man was connected to the universe in spooky ways. He discovered the laws of motion, the laws of gravity, the laws of optics. Then he turned 26.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson

“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.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry

“Down there between our legs, it's like an entertainment complex in the middle of a sewage system. Who designed that?”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson, Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier

“So you're made of detritus [from exploded stars]. Get over it. Or better yet, celebrate it. After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson, Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries

“Where ignorance lurks, so too do the frontiers of discovery and imagination”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson

“When students cheat on exams it's because our school system values grades more than students value learning.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson

“Dinosaurs are extinct today because they lacked opposable thumbs and the brainpower to build a space program.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson, The Sky Is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist

“But you can’t be a scientist if you’re uncomfortable with ignorance, because scientists live at the boundary between what is known and unknown in the cosmos. This is very different from the way journalists portray us. So many articles begin, “Scientists now have to go back to the drawing board.” It’s as though we’re sitting in our offices, feet up on our desks—masters of the universe—and suddenly say, “Oops, somebody discovered something!”

No. We’re always at the drawing board. If you’re not at the drawing board, you’re not making discoveries. You’re not a scientist; you’re something else. The public, on the other hand, seems to demand conclusive explanations as they leap without hesitation from statements of abject ignorance to statements of absolute certainty.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson, Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier

“As a child, I was aware that, at night, infrared vision would reveal monsters hiding in the bedroom closet only if they were warm-blooded. But everybody knows that your average bedroom monster is reptilian and cold-blooded.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson, Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries

“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

“Cutting PBS support (0.012% of budget) to help balance the Federal budget is like deleting text files to make room on your 500Gig hard drive”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson

“I love the smell of the universe in the morning.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson

“Yes, Einstein was a badass.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry

“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

“Scientific inquiry shouldn't stop just because a reasonable explanation has apparently been found.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson, Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries

“God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance that's getting smaller and smaller and smaller as time moves on.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson

“Looking more closely at Earth’s atmospheric fingerprints, human biomarkers will also include sulfuric, carbonic, and nitric acids, and other components of smog from the burning of fossil fuels. If the curious aliens happen to be socially, culturally, and technologically more advanced than we are, then they will surely interpret these biomarkers as convincing evidence for the absence of intelligent life on Earth.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry

“Again and again across the centuries, cosmic discoveries have demoted our self-image. Earth was once assumed to be astronomically unique, until astronomers learned that Earth is just another planet orbiting the Sun. Then we presumed the Sun was unique, until we learned that the countless stars of the night sky are suns themselves. Then we presumed our galaxy, the Milky Way, was the entire known universe, until we established that the countless fuzzy things in the sky are other galaxies, dotting the landscape of our known universe.

Today, how easy it is to presume that one universe is all there is. Yet emerging theories of modern cosmology, as well as the continually reaffirmed improbability that anything is unique, require that we remain open to the latest assault on our plea for distinctiveness: multiple universes, otherwise known as the “multiverse,” in which ours is just one of countless bubbles bursting forth from the fabric of the cosmos.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson, Cosmic Horizons: Astronomy at the Cutting Edge

“Every living thing is a masterpiece, written by nature and edited by evolution.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson

“Our nation is turning into an idiocracy.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson, Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier

“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.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson, Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries

“If you need to invoke your academic pedigree or job title for people to believe what you say, then you need a better argument.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson

“Doing what has never been done before is intellectually seductive, whether or not we deem it practical.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson

“Every cup that passes through a single person and eventually rejoins the world’s water supply holds enough molecules to mix 1,500 of them into every other cup of water in the world. No way around it: some of the water you just drank passed through the kidneys of Socrates, Genghis Khan, and Joan of Arc.

How about air? Also vital. A single breathful draws in more air molecules than there are breathfuls of air in Earth’s entire atmosphere. That means some of the air you just breathed passed through the lungs of Napoleon, Beethoven, Lincoln, and Billy the Kid.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry

“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?”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson