Quotessence
Home / Authors / Neil deGrasse Tyson
Neil deGrasse Tyson

Neil deGrasse Tyson Quotes

Astrophysicist

Filter quotes by topic

AllIfsPeopleUniverseScienceThinkingEarthKnowsWorldSpaceWant

Famous Neil deGrasse Tyson Quotes

“This influential, yet controversial idea requires that the mixture of species on Earth at any moment acts as a collective organism that continuously (yet unwittingly) tunes Earth's atmospheric composition and climate to promote the presence of life... But I'd bet there are some dead Martians and Venusians who advanced the same theory about their own planets a billion years ago.”

YearsIdeasMomentsEarthSciencePlanetsTheoryYears AgoClimateSpeciesBillionsTunesCollectivesCompositionOrganismsMixturesInfluentialControversialMartians
Book:Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries
Create image

“But my vote for Venus's most peculiar feature is the presence of craters that are all relatively young and uniformly distributed over its surface. This innocuous-sounding feature implicates a single planetwide catastrophe that reset the cratering clock... turning Venus's entire surface into the American automotive dream-a totally paved planet.”

DreamYoungSciencePlanetsVoteSurfaceClockFeaturesOver ItPeculiarCatastropheVenusResetCraters
Book:Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries
Create image

“So while you're getting ripped apart head to toe as you fall into a black hole, you will also extrude through the fabric of space and time, like toothpaste squeezed through a tube. To all the words in the English language that describe ways to die (e.g., homicide, suicide, electrocution, suffocation, starvation) we add the term spaghettification.”

WayScienceDiesFallLanguageBlackTermSpaceSuicideAddHolesFabricToesTime And SpaceEnglish LanguageStarvationTubesRippedBlack HoleHomicideToothpaste
Author:Neil deGrasse Tyson
Create image

“When provoked, the itsy-bitsy invertebrates known as tardigrades can suspend their metabolism. In that state, they can survive temperatures of... 73 K for days on end, making them hardy enough to endure being stranded on Neptune. So the next time you need space travelers with the right stuff, you might want to choose yeast and tardigrades, and leave your astronauts, cosmonauts, and taikonauts at home.”

WantNeedsEndsStatesEnoughHomeMightNextStuffSpaceKnownEndureExplorationNext TimeTravelerTemperatureAstronautSpace ExplorationSpace TravelHardyProvokedMetabolismStrandedYeastNeptuneRight StuffInvertebrates
Book:Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries
Create image

“Apart from the obvious advantages of having ice to melt, filter, then drink, you can also break apart the water's hydrogen from its oxygen. Use the hydrogen and some of the oxygen as active ingredients in rocket fuel and keep the rest of the oxygen for breathing. And in your spare time between space missions, you can always go ice skating on the frozen lake created with the extracted water.”

UseWaterSpaceBreakDrinkAdvantageObviousMissionsActiveIceBreathingFuelLakesExplorationIngredientsSparesFrozenOxygenRocketsSpace ExplorationSkatingFiltersHydrogenSpare TimeIce SkatingFrozen Lake
Book:Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries
Create image

“What are the lessons to be learned from this journey of the mind through the universe? That humans are emotionally fragile, perennially gullible, hopelessly ignorant masters of an insignificantly small speck in the cosmos. Have a nice day.”

MindHumansUniverseNiceJourneyMastersLessonsIgnorantCosmosExplorationFragileSpace ExplorationSpecksGullibleNice DayLessons To Be LearnedHave A Nice Day
Book:Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries
Create image

“I have found that when calculating what no one has calculated before, like my observing sessions on the mountain, my mental acuity peaks. Ironically, these are the times that I would flunk the reality check normally reserved for mental patients and dazed boxers: What is your name? What day is it? Who is the president of the United States?... I do not know, and I do not care. I am at peace with my equations as I connect to the cosmic engines that drive our universe.”

KnowsStatesRealityCareUniverseFoundNamesPresidentUnitedUnited StatesMountainPatientChecksExplorationEnginesCosmicEquationsSessionObservingReservedSpace ExplorationBoxersCalculatingDazed
Author:Neil deGrasse Tyson
Create image

“We should not measure our space-faring era by where footprints have been laid.... We should measure our era by how many people take no notice at all. A legacy rises to become culture only when its elements are so common that they no longer attract comment.”

PeopleShouldHas BeensCultureSpaceCommonElementsErasLegacyCommentFootprint
Book:The Sky is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist
Create image

“During the 1970s and 1980s, the popular television soap opera As The World Turns portrayed sunrise during the opening credits and sunset during the closing credits... The soap-opera sunrise showed the sun moving toward the left as it rose rather than to the right. They obviously had gotten a piece of film showing a sunset and played it in reverse... Had they called their local astrophysicists, any one of us might have recommended that if they needed to save money, they could have shown the sunset in a mirror before they showed it running backward.”

IfsWorldMightRunningFilmMovingTurnsCultureLeftSunPiecesTelevisionNeededMirrorsRoseCreditLocalsOpeningSunsetOperaReverseSunriseClosingSoapSaving MoneySoap OperasRunning Back
Author:Neil deGrasse Tyson
Create image

“They all knew the mothership was coming, they all knew it was a flying saucer, they all knew it came from another planet through the vacuum of space. And so what do they do, to the left of that monument? They set up runway lights. And I'm thinking, if you could travel through the vacuum of space, you don't need runway lights. Runway lights are if you're using air for lift. Aliens would not need air for lift.”

IfsThinkingNeedsLightCultureLeftSpaceAirPlanetsFlyingAliensLiftsMonumentVacuumsRunwayFlying Saucers
Author:Neil deGrasse Tyson
Create image

“Astronomers do not commonly use Venereal, in favor of the less contagious-sounding Venutian. Blame the medical community, who snatched the word long before astronomers had any good use for it. I suppose you can't blame the doctors. Venus is the goddess of beauty and love, so she ought to be the goddess of its medical consequences.”

LongUseCultureCommunityOughtConsequenceDoctorsAnd LoveBlameMedicalFavorsGoddessContagiousVenusAstronomersBeauty And Love
Book:The Sky is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist
Create image

“The word smart is not applied to all professions, even if you are smart in that profession. No one talks about smart lawyers. They may say a brilliant lawyer. They'll talk about a creative artist. Smart is saved for scientists. It just is. It's not even really applied to medical doctors. It applies to scientists in the lab figuring out what hadn't been figured out before.”

IfsMayArtistCultureCreativeSmartDoctorsScientistProfessionBrilliantLawyerMedicalSavedLabsCreative ArtCreative ArtistsMedical Doctor
Author:Neil deGrasse Tyson
Create image

“I want upon death to be buried, just like in the old days, where I decompose by the action of microorganisms, and I am dined upon by any form of creeping animal or root system that sees fit to do so.... I will have recycled back to the universe at least some of the energy that I have taken from it. And in so doing, at the conclusion of my scientific adventures, I will have come closer to the heavens than to Earth.”

WantActionEarthFormUniverseEnergyHeavenAnimalTakenAdventureFitRootsConclusionBuriedExtinctionWant UOld DaysRecycledMicroorganisms
Author:Neil deGrasse Tyson
Create image

“I remain fearless of airplanes after 9/11. But during a trip to Los Angeles on a Boeing 767, I couldn't keep my mind from drifting: What's the largest piece of this airplane that could crash into the World Trade Center, explode out the other side, and survive intact? The landing gear? My computer battery? My belt buckle? My wedding ring?”

WorldMindSidesPiecesComputerTradeRingsFearlessLos AngelesAirplaneCrashExtinctionBeltsGearsLandingDriftingBatteriesWorld TradeBoeingWorld Trade CenterBucklesWedding RingBelt Buckles
Author:Neil deGrasse Tyson
Create image

“When you're a hammer (as the saying goes), all your problems look like nails. If you're a meteorite expert pondering the sudden extinction of boatloads of species, you'll want to say an impact did it. If you're an igneous petrologist, volcanoes did it. If you're into spaceborne bioclouds, an interstellar virus did it. If you're a hypernova expert, gamma rays did it.”

IfsWantLooksProblemImpactSpeciesExpertsRaysNailsExtinctionHammersVirusesPonderingVolcanoesInterstellarGamma Rays
Book:Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries
Create image

“But to carve the Grand Canyon, Earth required millions of years. To excavate Meteor Crater, the universe, using a sixty-thousand-ton asteroid traveling upward of twenty miles per second, required a fraction of a second. No offense to Grand Canyon lovers, but for my money, Meteor Crater is the most amazing natural landmark in the world.”

WorldYearsEarthUniverseNaturalMillionsLoversThousandTwentiesMilesSixtyOffenseExtinctionFractionsMost AmazingCanyonsLandmarksAsteroidsGrand CanyonMeteorsCraters
Author:Neil deGrasse Tyson
Create image

“If Earth ever suffers a runaway greenhouse effect (like what has happened on Venus), then our atmosphere would trap excess amounts of solar energy, the air temperature would rise, and the oceans would swiftly evaporate into the atmosphere as they sustained a rolling boil. This would be bad.”

IfsWould BeEarthSufferingEnergyHappenedAirEffectsAmountOceanAtmosphereExcessRollingTrapsExtinctionTemperatureVenusGreenhousesRunawaySolar Energy
Author:Neil deGrasse Tyson
Create image

“Trillions of years into the future, when all stars are gone...all parts of the cosmos will cool to the same temperature as the ever-cooling background. At that time, space travel will no longer provide refuge because even Hell will have frozen over. We may then declare that the universe has died-not with a bang, but with a whimper.”

YearsMayUniverseStarsSpaceGoneHellDiedBackgroundsCosmosRefugeFrozenExtinctionBangsTemperatureSpace TravelCoolingAll Stars
Author:Neil deGrasse Tyson
Create image

“But to measure cause and effect... you must ensure that a simple correlation, however tempting it may be, is not mistaken for a cause. In the 1990s the stork population of Germany increased and the German at-home birth rate rose as well. Shall we credit storks for airlifting the babies?”

WellsMayHomeCausesSimpleEffectsBabyBirthRoseRatePopulationCreditGermanyMistakenCause And EffectTemptingCorrelationPseudoscienceBirth RateStorksHome Birth
Author:Neil deGrasse Tyson
Create image