Neil deGrasse Tyson

As an American, I grew up in an era where we led the world in everything. Everything!

I've known from long ago that the universe was calling me. If you were one of those annoying adults that said, 'Oh, what are you gonna be when you grow up?' I would say, 'Astrophysicist.' And then they'd walk away real quickly.

Humans aren't as good as we should be in our capacity to empathize with feelings and thoughts of others, be they humans or other animals on Earth. So maybe part of our formal education should be training in empathy. Imagine how different the world would be if, in fact, that were 'reading, writing, arithmetic, empathy.'

The universe is large and old, and the ingredients for life as we know it are everywhere, so there's no reason to think that Earth would be unique in that regard. Whether of not the life became intelligent is a different question, and we'll see if we find that.

In nature, when you conduct science, it is the natural world that is the ultimate decider in what is true and what is not.

What people are really after is, what is my stance on religion or spirituality or God? And I would say, if I find a word that came closest, it would be agnostic.

Let's find a new way to think about the entire taxonomy of solar system objects, and not clutch to this concept of 'planet,' which, of course, only ever meant, 'Do you move against the background stars, regardless of what you're made of?'

Kids should be allowed to break stuff more often. That's a consequence of exploration. Exploration is what you do when you don't know what you're doing. That's what scientists do every day.

The first colony on Mars is not going to be built by a private company. How are you going to make money? You're not.

There's something about witnessing something in the sky that makes people think they're seeing something unique or special. I don't really understand the psychology of it, to be honest.

In any city with lots of skyscrapers, lots of skyline, the moon seems bigger than it is. It's called the moon illusion.

All the traditional STEM fields, the science, technology, engineering, and math fields, are stoked when you dream big in an agency such as NASA.

I always try to get people a different outlook. When you do that, people take ownership of the information. They don't ever have to reference me because, I'd like to believe as an educator, I'm empowering them to have those thoughts themselves.

Whether or not people go into space or serve the space industry, they will have the sensitivity to those fields necessary to stimulate unending innovation in the technological fields, and it's that innovation in the 21st century that will drive tomorrow's economies.

It may be that our cosmic curiosity... is a genetically-encoded force that we illuminate when we look up and wonder.

Innovations in science and technology are the engines of the 21st-century economy; if you care about the wealth and health of your nation tomorrow, then you'd better rethink how you allocate taxes to fund science. The federal budget needs to recognize this.

For centuries, magicians have intuitively taken advantage of the inner workings of our brains.

Science is basically an inoculation against charlatans.

I study the universe. It's the second oldest profession. People have been looking up for a long time.

The idea that science is just some luxury that you'll get around to if you can afford it is regressive to any future a country might dream for itself.