Mae Jemison

Never limit yourself because of others' limited imagination; never limit others because of your own limited imagination.

Greatness can be captured in one word: lifestyle. Life is God's gift to you, style is what you make of it.

To survive as a species on this planet, we're going to have to see ourselves as Earthlings.

We look at science as something very elite, which only a few people can learn. That's just not true. You just have to start early and give kids a foundation. Kids live up, or down, to expectations.

Intuitive versus analytical? That's a foolish choice. It's foolish, just like trying to choose between being realistic or idealistic. You need both in life.

The reality is the majority of us will not get off this planet. So the long run is, some kind of space exploration has to benefit us here on Earth.

I had great mentors in my parents who always sought to understand the world around them. And they would push me to really think things through.

Never be limited by other people's limited imaginations.

Sometimes parents squash students' interests because they are afraid of science or math. So they don't participate. You don't have to know the answers to engage kids; you just have to let them know it's important.

I've gotten this advice at different times, and it distills down to one word: purpose. Why are you here? When you start to get distracted by thoughts such as 'Do I fit in? Does this person like me?' - remember why you're there and what you want to accomplish.

When I left NASA, I was looking at how you could use space technologies for developing countries' work.

Everyone in the astronaut program has a degree in a science field. The crew are the ones who do the experiments, help to design some of the experiments that come from other primary researchers. So it becomes very important that you have a science background.

In space, you need to exercise your heart since it's not pumping blood around at the same rate.

I was thinking as a little girl growing up that I would be there. When I look at whether we can go to Mars, it's definitely something we can do.

I was a science fiction geek. That lets you know that they come in all sizes and styles, right?

When you have teachers saying, 'I don't have enough time for hands-on activities,' we need to rethink the way we do education.

I like to think of ideas as potential energy. They're really wonderful, but nothing will happen until we risk putting them into action.

Sometimes people ask me how difficult the astronaut program was, but being in Sierra Leone, being responsible for the health of more than 200 people, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, at age 26 - that prepared me to take on a lot of different challenges.

What I'm very concerned about is how do we bolster our self-awareness as humans, as biological organisms?

Timidity does not inspire bold acts.

The best way to get students involved in science and want to follow either science careers or incorporate it in their lives or to achieve science literacy is to expose them to the various jobs in STEM. It's broad from biologists to electricians to nanotechnologists to building fusion engines. It's a wide range of things.