Neil deGrasse Tyson

Not only are we in the universe, the universe is in us.

The universe is a laboratory, and we are the experiment.

The great thing about science is that it's self-correcting. New evidence can overturn old theories.

I would request that my body in death be buried not cremated, so that the energy content contained within it gets returned to the earth, so that flora and fauna can dine upon it, just as I have dined upon flora and fauna during my lifetime.

If you're scientifically literate, the world looks very different to you. It's not just a lot of mysterious things happening. There is a lot we understand out there. And that understanding empowers you to first, not be taken advantage of by others who do understand it, and second, to be able to make better decisions about the future.

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.

Kids are never the problem. They are born scientists. The problem is always the adults. They beat the curiosity out of kids.

The beautiful thing about learning is nobody can take it away from you.

The cosmic perspective shows Earth to be a mote. But it's a precious mote and, for the moment, it's the only home we have.

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.

The universe is both the ultimate laboratory and the ultimate courtroom.

People cited violation of the First Amendment when a New Jersey schoolteacher 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.

The moment someone says, 'I have a theory,' they don't. They have a hypothesis.

The fun part of science fiction is that you get to ignore science.

I am convinced that the act of thinking logically cannot possibly be natural to the human mind. If it were, then mathematics would be everybody's easiest course at school and our species would not have taken several millennia to figure out the scientific method.

The only way you can invent tomorrow is if you break out of the enclosure that the school system has provided for you by the exams written by people who are trained in another generation.

When you look at the darkness of the night sky, you're looking at the universe as it was, not as it is.

The most important discoveries will provide answers to questions that we do not yet know how to ask and will concern objects we have not yet imagined.

The cosmic perspective is humble. The cosmic perspective is spiritual—even redemptive—but not religious.

In science, when human behavior enters the equation, things go nonlinear. That's why Physics is easy and Sociology is hard.