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"You could also ask who's in charge. Lots of people think, well, we're humans; we're the most intelligent and accomplished species; we're in charge. Bacteria may have a different outlook: more bacteria live and work in one linear centimeter of your lower colon than all the humans who have ever lived. That's what's going on in your digestive tract right now. Are we in charge, or are we simply hosts for bacteria? It all depends on your outlook."
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Exlpore more Perspective quotes
"Joblessness does not necessarily mean idleness."
"If you want to know the value of a second, ask the person who just crossed the road at the wrong time and barely escaped being hit by a speeding car."
"We cannot compare our position to the people in this world."
"Build your life not on the things of today, but on the things of tomorrow."
"How you see the world may not be how others view it."
"Sticking to old and narrow views of life makes us look foolish in God."
"To have wealth does not mean you love money, you can love money and not even have a cent."
"Three weeks ago, he'd seen hail fall from the sky, onlyto be followed minutes later by a spectacular rainbow that seemed to frame the azalea bushes. The colors, so vivid they seemed almost alive, made him think that nature sometimes sends us signs, that it's important to remember that joy can always follow despair. But a moment later, the rainbow had vanished and the hail returned, and he realized that joy was sometimes only an illusion."
"We have a choice. We can be jaded by what we've lost, or joyous over what that thing had accomplished while we had it."
Explore more quotes by Neil deGrasse Tyson
"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."
"One of the greatest features of science is that it doesn't matter where you were born, and it doesn't matter what the belief systems of your parents might have been: If you perform the same experiment that someone else did, at a different time and place, you'll get the same result."
"If the United States commits to the goal of reaching Mars, it will almost certainly do so in reaction to the progress of other nations - as was the case with NASA, the Apollo program, and the project that became the International Space Station."
"You can't train kids in a world where adults have no concept of what science literacy is. The adults are gonna squash the creativity that would manifest itself, because they're clueless about what it and why it matters. But science can always benefit from the more brains there are that are thinking about it - but that's true for any field."
"Ignorance is a virus. Once it starts spreading, it can only be cured by reason. For the sake of humanity, we must be that cure."
"The partisanship surrounding space exploration and the retrenching of U.S. space policy are part of a more general trend: the decline of science in the United States. As its interest in science wanes, the country loses ground to the rest of the industrialized world in every measure of technological proficiency."
"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."
"The very nature of science is discoveries, and the best of those discoveries are the ones you don't expect."
"The most accessible field in science, from the point of view of language, is astrophysics. What do you call spots on the sun? Sunspots. Regions of space you fall into and you don't come out of? Black holes. Big red stars? Red giants. So I take my fellow scientists to task. He'll use his word, and if I understand it, I'll say, "Oh, does that mean da-da-da-de-da?"
"The moment when someone attaches you to a philosophy or a movement, then they assign all the baggage and all the rest of the philosophy that goes with it to you. And when you want to have a conversation, they will assert that they already know everything important there is to know about you because of that association. And that's not the way to have a conversation."
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