Neil deGrasse Tyson

"God is an ever receding pocket of scientific ignorance."

"Kids are never the problem. They are born scientists. The problem is always the adults. They beat the curiosity out of kids. They outnumber kids. They vote. They wield resources. That's why my public focus is primarily adults."

"I would teach how science works as much as I would teach what science knows. I would assert (given that essentially, everyone will learn to read) that science literacy is the most important kind of literacy they can take into the 21st century. I would undervalue grades based on knowing things and find ways to reward curiosity. In the end, it's the people who are curious who change the world."

"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."

"For me, I am driven by two main philosophies: know more today about the world than I knew yesterday and lessen the suffering of others. You'd be surprised how far that gets you."

"We spend the first year of a child's life teaching it to walk and talk and the rest of its life to shut up and sit down. There's something wrong there."

"Curious that we spend more time congratulating people who have succeeded than encouraging people who have not."

"Let's say intelligence is your ability to compose poetry, symphonies, do art, math and science. Chimps can't do any of that, yet we share 99 percent DNA. Everything that we are, that distinguishes us from chimps, emerges from that one-percent difference."

"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."

"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"

"The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it."

"I want to put on the table, not why 85% of the members of the National Academy of Sciences reject God, I want to know why 15% of the National Academy don’t."

"I would teach how science works as much as I would teach what science knows. I would assert (given that essentially, everyone will learn to read) that science literacy is the most important kind of literacy they can take into the 21st century. I would undervalue grades based on knowing things and find ways to reward curiosity. In the end, it's the people who are curious who change the world."

"When asked about which scientist he'd like to meet, Neil deGrasse Tyson said, "Isaac Newton. No question about it. The smartest person ever to walk the face of this earth. The man was connected to the universe in spooky ways. He discovered the laws of motion, the laws of gravity, the laws of optics. Then he turned 26."

"God is an ever receding pocket of scientific ignorance."

"My view is that if your philosophy is not unsettled daily then you are blind to all the universe has to offer."

"My view is that if your philosophy is not unsettled daily then you are blind to all the universe has to offer."

"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."

"God is an ever receding pocket of scientific ignorance."

"Where ignorance lurks, so too do the frontiers of discovery and imagination"