Quotes by Neil deGrasse Tyson

About Neil deGrasse Tyson:

Neil deGrasse Tyson is an American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, and science communicator. Since 1996, he has been the Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space in New York City. The center is part of the American Museum of Natural History, where Tyson founded the Department of Astrophysics in 1997 and has been a research associate in the department since 2003.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

If we find life out there, and it's not us, we will deem it not intelligent. But what may be equally as likely is that we find life that's vastly more intelligent than we are. If that's the case, we are putty in their hands.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

The universe is large and old, and the ingredients for life as we know it are everywhere, so there's no reason to think that Earth would be unique in that regard. Whether of not the life became intelligent is a different question, and we'll see if we...

Neil deGrasse Tyson

I've been a minimalist my whole life, even if you wouldn't know it from my office.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

There's a lot to do in space. I want to learn more about the greenhouse effect on Venus, about whether there was life on Mars, about the environment in which Earth and the Sun is immersed, the behavior of the Sun.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

No astrophysicist would deny the possibility of life. I think we're not creative enough to imagine what life would be like on another planet. Show me a dead alien. Better yet, show me a live one!

Neil deGrasse Tyson

If your ego starts out, 'I am important, I am big, I am special,' you're in for some disappointments when you look around at what we've discovered about the universe. No, you're not big. No, you're not. You're small in time and in space. And you have...

Neil deGrasse Tyson

The universe is hilarious! Like, Venus is 900 degrees. I could tell you it melts lead. But that's not as fun as saying, 'You can cook a pizza on the windowsill in nine seconds.' And next time my fans eat pizza, they're thinking of Venus!

Neil deGrasse Tyson

The solar system should be viewed as our backyard, not as some sequence of destinations that we do one at a time.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Half of my library are old books because I like seeing how people thought about their world at their time. So that I don't get bigheaded about something we just discovered and I can be humble about where we might go next. Because you can see who got ...

Neil deGrasse Tyson

The urge to miniaturize electronics did not exist before the space program. I mean our grandparents had radios that was furniture in the living room. Nobody at the time was saying, 'Gee, I want to carry that in my pocket.' Which is a non-thought.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

I study the universe. It's the second oldest profession. People have been looking up for a long time.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

In all civilizations we've studied, all cultures that we know of across the Earth and across time have invested some kind of attempt to understanding where where, where they come from, and where they are going.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

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.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

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

Neil deGrasse Tyson

In nature, when you conduct science, it is the natural world that is the ultimate decider in what is true and what is not.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

The methods and tools of science perennially breach barriers, granting me confidence that our epic march of insight into the operations of nature will continue without end.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Asteroids have us in our sight. The dinosaurs didn't have a space program, so they're not here to talk about this problem. We are, and we have the power to do something about it. I don't want to be the embarrassment of the galaxy, to have had the pow...

Neil deGrasse Tyson

I've spent quality time in the aerospace community, with my service on two presidential commissions, but at heart, I'm an academic. Being an academic means I don't wield power over person, place or thing. I don't command armies; I don't lead labor un...

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Every account of a higher power that I've seen described, of all religions that I've seen, include many statements with regard to the benevolence of that power. When I look at the universe and all the ways the universe wants to kill us, I find it har...

Neil deGrasse Tyson

I don't want to be the embarrassment of the galaxy to have had the power to deflect an asteroid, and then not and end up going extinct. We'd be the laughingstock of the aliens of the cosmos if that were the case.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

We explore our environment, more than we are compelled to utter poetry, when we're toddlers. We start doing that later. Before that happens, every child is a scientist.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Author Bio

  • NameNeil deGrasse Tyson
  • DescriptionAmerican astrophysicist and science communicator
  • BornOctober 5, 1958
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionAstrophysicist; Science Writer; Teacher; Popularizer Of Science; Cosmologist