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When I needed to overcome the low expectations of others or the bias that would be expressed in one circumstance or another, I'd keep on keeping on. And I climb over the obstacle, go around it, dig under it, fly over it. That's what kept me going. Otherwise I would have never been an astrophysicist.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

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Neil deGrasse Tyson
Age: 66
Born: 1958
Born: October 5
Actor
Astronomer
Astrophysicist
Cosmologist
Non-Fiction Writer
Philosopher
Physicist
Science Communicator
Science Writer
Teacher
Trekkie
The Bronx
New York City
Neil Tyson
Another
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Kept
Climb
Going
Otherwise
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Never
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Needed
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Astrophysicist
Keep
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Bias

More quotes by Neil deGrasse Tyson

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We are not simply in the universe, we are part of it. We are born from it. One might even say we have been empowered by the universe to figure itself out - and we have only just begun.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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I wonder if, in fact, we have been observed by aliens and upon close examination of human conduct and human behavior they have concluded that there is no sign of intelligent life on Earth.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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I think the material that inspires artists is the fabric of the soul of civilization.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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For centuries, magicians have intuitively taken advantage of the inner workings of our brains.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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Without new economies, our old economies get our jobs taken from them because everyone else has figured out how to do it.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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I see all this talk about jobs going overseas as a symptom of the absence of innovation. And the absence of innovation is a symptom of there being no major national priority to advance a frontier.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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Three and a half million years ago our ancestors - yours and mine - left these traces [indicates footprints]. We stood up and parted ways from them. Once we were standing on two feet, our eyes were no longer fixated on the ground. Now, we were free to look up and wonder.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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Our five senses are faulty data-taking devices, and they need help.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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I've always been interested in pop culture. Some of my colleagues think of pop culture as beneath them, or there's the ivory tower and then there's everybody else, and I never could buy into that wall that's been put up by so many people over the decades and even the centuries.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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Any time we are answer-driven rather than idea driven, we have lost the true meaning of education.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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No one wants to die, and no one wants to die poor. These are the two fundamental truths that transcend culture, they transcend politics, they transcend economic cycles.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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I don't want to make a member of Congress do something that that member of Congress's constituents would not approve of, or would not agree to. So in that regard, I'm kind of the opposite of a lobbyist.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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I always wanted to be respected for my mind.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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Life existed on Earth for nearly four billion years before anything remotely resembling a human being showed up. And even then, when we started to branch off from other apes about 10,000,000 years ago, our ancestors looked pretty different.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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One should not be too distracted by definitions. Ideas transcend definitions.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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The caricature of science is that we hold tight to the theories we have, and shun challenges to them. That's just not true. In fact, we hold our highest rewards for those scientists who can prove others wrong. And by the way, they are famous in their own lifetimes. We don't wait until they're dead.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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You don't discard Newton. Newton becomes the limiting case of how you would apply Einstein's theories.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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We are all connected to each other biologically, to the earth chemically and to the rest of the universe atomically. That's kinda cool! That makes me smile and I actually feel quite large at the end of that. It's not that we are better than the universe, we are part of the universe. We are in the universe and the universe is in us.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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Most of what Einstein said and did has no direct impact on what anybody reads in the Bible. Special relativity, his work in quantum mechanics, nobody even knows or cares. Where Einstein really affects the Bible is the fact that general relativity is the organizing principle for the Big Bang.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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If it's a new planet, sign me up. I'm tired of driving around the block, boldly going where hundreds have gone before in orbit around earth-give me a place to go and I'll go.
Neil deGrasse Tyson