Neil deGrasse
Neil deGrasse
teacher stars community
Science is a cooperative enterprise spanning the generations. It's the passing of a torch from teacher to student to teacher. A community of minds, reaching back to antiquity and forward to the stars.
problem easy solve
If you seek only easy problems to solve, then ultimately, there'll be nothing about you to distinguish yourself from others.
risk proud boundaries
I am proud to be part of a species where a subset of its members willingly put their lives at risk to push the boundaries of our existence.
offering body flora
I'd rather enjoy the money, and then be buried, offering my body back to the flora and fauna of which I have dined my whole life.
self driven greater
There is no greater education than one that is self-driven.
depressing thinking perspective
Those who see the cosmic perspective as a depressing outlook, they really need to reassess how they think about the world. Because when I look up in the universe, I know I'm small but I'm also big. I'm big because I'm connected to the universe, and the universe is connected to me.
creativity people way
Rational thoughts never drive people's creativity the way emotions do.
luxury enlightenment needs
Society needs to see science not as a luxury of funding but as a fundamental activity that drives enlightenment, economics, and security.
reality imagination cosmos
Imagination alone is not enough, because the reality of nature is far more wondrous than anything we can imagine
believe charlatans
Science is like an inoculation against charlatans who would have you believe whatever it is they tell you.
thinking order skills
I think science has a better story to tell than anyone else has been able to tell and that's because it's based on the rigorous winnowing that science and scientists are always doing in order to find out what's really happening. I think it's really good to encourage generally our ability to tell stories and that's a great skill that we come by naturally, so I'm excited about that.
information
All information is good, even when it is bad.
ignorance vaccines intellectual
Scientific literacy is an intellectual vaccine against the claims of charlatans who would exploit ignorance.
disappointment special-you space
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.