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When you're enlightened, you don't have to reference other people, because you yourself are enlightened. And that's a better Earth. People can make more informed decisions politically, culturally, personally.

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
Decision
Earth
Culturally
Better
Reference
Make
Informed
People
Politically
Enlightened
Personally
Decisions

More quotes by Neil deGrasse Tyson

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Countless women are alive today because of ideas stimulated by a design flaw in the Hubble Space Telescope.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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Deep in the world of atomic nuclei, life is not always tranquil.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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It's quite literally true that we are star dust, in the highest exalted way one can use that phrase. ...I bask in the majesty of the cosmos. I use words, compose sentences that sound like the sentences I hear out of people that had revelation of Jesus, who go on their pilgrimages to Mecca.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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While I'm a big fan of science fiction, especially as rendered in expensive Hollywood blockbusters, it's the real universe that calls to me. To fall into a black hole, that is more amazing than anything I've ever read in a science-fiction story.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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I don't see why there is no intelligent alien life in the universe.
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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Miniaturization of electronics started by NASA's push became an entire consumer products industry. Now we're carrying the complete works of Beethoven on a lapel pin listening to it in headphones.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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I would say - and paint doesn't peel unless it's acrylic paint, so maybe it is acrylic paint that they're using, not oil paint. So let me say yes, it would be acrylic house paint, which, when it dries, peels very nicely. So let's go with that.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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I don't want to die ... I don't want to die poor. Two great motivators in the history of human cultures.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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For me, the most fascinating interface is Twitter. I have odd cosmic thoughts every day and I realized I could hold them to myself or share them with people who might be interested.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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The news media reported the $250 million as an unthinkably huge waste of money and proclaimed that something was wrong with NASA. The result was an investigation and a congressional hearing. Not to defend failure, but $250 million is not much more than the cost to produce Kevin Costner's film flop Waterworld.
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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For me, one of the most fertile consequences of the space program is the extent to which it stimulates people to innovate because they want to create a different tomorrow than what they're living in today. And it's that culture of innovation that spawns entirely new economies.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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Right now people think God is dark energy and dark matter, the spirit. Go ahead and think that, but the day we can tell you exactly what it is - that it's gremlins in the vacuum of space or whatever - then what's your recourse at that point?
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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He invited people to sign a petition that demanded either strict control of, or a total ban on, dihydrogen monoxide.... Yes, 86 percent of the passersby voted to ban water (H2O) from the environment. Maybe that's what really happened to all the water on Mars.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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We're quite happy with our Big Bang description of cosmic origins. But actually, the Big Bang accounts for what happened only after the beginning. The beginning itself, and especially what happened before, remains the biggest mystery of all.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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I know of no time in human history where ignorance was better than knowledge.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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Part of knowing how to think is knowing how the laws of nature shape the world around us. Without that knowledge, without that capacity to think, you can easily become a victim of people who seek to take advantage of you.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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I don't live life to be remembered for anything.
Neil deGrasse Tyson