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.

— Neil deGrasse Tyson

If you removed all the arteries, veins, & capillaries from a person’s body, and tied them end-to-end…the person will die.

— Neil deGrasse Tyson

If you want a nation to have space exploration ambitions, you've got to send humans.

— Neil deGrasse Tyson

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.

— Neil deGrasse Tyson

I have a personal philosophy in life: If somebody else can do something that I'm doing, they should do it. And what I want to do is find things that would represent a unique contribution to the world - the contribution that only I, and my portfolio of talents, can make happen. Those are my priorities in life.

— Neil deGrasse Tyson

I know of no time in human history where ignorance was better than knowledge.

— Neil deGrasse Tyson

I know that the molecules in my body are traceable to phenomena in the cosmos. That makes me want to grab people on the street and say: ‘Have you HEARD THIS?

— Neil deGrasse Tyson

I look forward to the day when the solar system becomes our collective backyard—explored not only with robots, but with the mind, body, and soul of our species.

— Neil deGrasse Tyson

I look up at the night sky, and I know that, yes, we are part of this Universe, we are in this Universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the Universe is in us. When I reflect on that fact, I look up—many people feel small, because they’re small and the Universe is big, but I feel big, because my atoms came from those stars.

— Neil deGrasse Tyson

I'm not as famous as Stephen Hawking, but certainly in the U.S., I have a very high profile for a scientist. It is an awesome responsibility, one that I don't shoulder lightly.

— Neil deGrasse Tyson