Neil Degrasse Tyson

Imagination alone is not enough, because the reality of nature is far more wondrous than anything we can imagine

All information is good, even when it is bad.

The greatest of people in society carve niches that represent the unique expression of their combinations of talents. If everyone had the luxury of expressing the unique combination of talents in this world, our society would be transofrmed over night.

You will never find scientists leading armies into battle. You just won’t. Especially not astrophysicists -we see the biggest picture there is. We understand how small we are in the cosmos. We understand how fragile and temporary our existence is here on Earth. We understand there are bigger problems we need to solve as a species than what God you pray to.

Let us not fool ourselves into thinking we went to the Moon because we are pioneers, or discoverers, or adventurers. We went to the Moon because it was the militaristically expedient thing to do.

On Friday the 13th, April 2029, an asteroid large enough to fill the Rose Bowl as though it were an egg cup will fly so close to Earth that it will dip below the altitude of our communication satellites. We did not name this asteroid Bambi. Instead, we named it Apophis, after the Egyptian god of darkness and death.

Countless women are alive today because of ideas stimulated by a design flaw in the Hubble Space Telescope.

Science is basically an inoculation against charlatans.

The universe has really never made things in ones. The Earth is special and everything else is different? No, we’ve got seven other planets. The sun? No, the sun is one of those dots in the night sky. The Milky Way? No, it’s one of a hundred billion galaxies. And the universe - maybe it’s countless other universes.

Perhaps we’ve never been visited by aliens because they have looked upon earth and decided there’s no sign of intelligent life.

We need more science in the world. Train me.

The greatest explorer of recent decades is not even human.

Before we start talking about genetic differences, you gotta come up with a system where there's equal opportunity.

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.

Dreams about the future are always filled with gadgets.

Physics is the only profession in which prophecy is not only accurate but routine.

I lose sleep at night wondering whether we are intelligent enough to figure out the universe. I don't know.

Even with all our technology and the inventions that make modern life so much easier than it once was, it takes just one big natural disaster to wipe all that away and remind us that, here on Earth, we're still at the mercy of nature.

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

If Mars formed life, then life on Earth could have been seeded by life on Mars, making every life form on Earth descended from Martians.

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 this frail vessel called the human body that's limited on Earth.