Neil deGrasse Tyson Quotes

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.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

• True
• Science
• Famous

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Quotes to Explore

• The long irons are the nemesis of the average golfer. I'm convinced that the underlying reason for this is that he keeps hearing how hard they are to handle. They're not that difficult, truly.

  

  Jack Nicklaus
  • Long
  • Reason
  • Difficult

• If a Chinese student does not know Chinese learning, it's like a person without a surname, a horse without a bridle, a boat without a helm. The more Western learning he possesses, the more hateful of China he will become. Even if he becomes a capable man of vast learning, how can he be of any use to the state?

  

  Zhang Zhidong
  • Man
  • Learning
  • Horse

• I keep returning to the central question facing over-50 women as we move into our Second Adulthood. What are our goals for this stage in our lives?

  

  Gail Sheehy
  • Women
  • Question
  • Goals

• Crime and the fear of crime have permeated the fabric of American life.

  

  Warren E. Burger
  • Life
  • American
  • Fear

• My mind is vacant on names, but I know him as well as anything. When I need names they drop out of my head; when I don't need them they drop back.

  

  Imogen Cunningham
  • Mind
  • Know
  • Him

• Free trade is not based on utility but on justice.

  

  Edmund Burke
  • Free
  • Justice
  • Trade

• I've got quite a good poker face. I'm known for being able to keep my emotions very much in check: no one knows how I'm feeling. I can be winning or losing but keep it very much the same.

  

  Rajiv Ouseph
  • Good
  • Feeling
  • Winning

• I have been interested in fashion since I was a kid. Then I lived in London, where it was more about costume and a personal statement of who you are than about fashion.

  

  Zaha Hadid
  • You
  • Fashion
  • London

• Frequently you have a clash between the more sterile letter of the law and the justice that underlies it, and I think one of the things I've been trying more or less, where it was possible, is to go with the justice rather than the letter of the law.

  

  Harold H. Greene
  • Trying
  • Law
  • Justice

• We are like petri dishes, where we can innovate, but we want to do it carefully and thoughtfully.

  

  Kate Brown
  • Want
  • Like
  • Where

• You know how in every heist movie they get past the security cameras that show the hallway leading to the diamonds by jamming the screens with a fake signal of everything looking safe and quiet? Usually a guard coughs so they don't notice the blip from switching to the bogus feed.

  

  Adam McKay
  • Movie
  • Past
  • Fake

• The only thing I miss on stage is the falsetto.

  

  Barry Gibb Bee Gees
  • Stage
  • Only
  • The Only Thing

• Very, very rare that you do a job knowing that the audience is desperate for you to do that job. Most films you make don't get released, is the fact.

  

  Ian Mckellen
  • Job
  • You
  • Audience

• I write to please me, and I've been very lucky. It's like playing baseball. You just keep swinging, and eventually you get a hit.

  

  Karen Robards
  • Me
  • Baseball
  • Lucky

• I think being on a set where people aren't being treated as equals, and with just a common level of decency and respect, is really uncomfortable.

  

  Gaby Hoffmann
  • People
  • Respect
  • Decency

• Maybe entertainment is not supposed to be reality.

  

  Victoria Jackson
  • Reality
  • Entertainment

• Our evolution could have gone in different directions a lot of times. We could have gone extinct at some points. We might not have gotten our big brains, or Neanderthals might have made it while we did not.

  

  Sam Kean
  • Different
  • Evolution
  • Brains

• Pre-Internet, maybe it took six months for a fashion message to get across to a customer base. Fashion messages are now being sent out overnight, simultaneously, to every market in the world.

  

  Natalie Massenet
  • World
  • Fashion
  • Customer

• World-building numbs the reader's ability to fulfill their part of the bargain because it believes that it has to do everything around here if anything is going to get done. Above all, world-building is not technically necessary. It is the great clomping foot of nerdism. It is the attempt to exhaustively survey a place that isn't there.

  

  M. John Harrison
  • World
  • Great
  • Done

• It's true that I have not been able to completely close Guantanamo, but we've drastically reduced the population from 700 or so to around 60 now.

  

  Barack Obama
  • True

• 'Tis certain that our senses are extremely disproportioned for comprehending the whole compass and latitude of things.

  

  John Wilkins
  • Science
  • Certain
  • Compass

• Certainly, I must confess my own barbarousness, I never heard the old song of Percy and Douglas that I found not my heart moved more than with a trumpet.

  

  Philip Sidney
  • Heart
  • Song

• Reading was not just an escape or a Band-Aid; it was a deep form of feeling seen and recognized, and being able to see and recognize other kindred spirits. My dad was a writer, too, which also likely had something to do with that.

  

  Garth Risk Hallberg
  • Feeling
  • Dad
  • Reading

• 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.

  

  Neil deGrasse Tyson
  • True
  • Science
  • Famous