Quote collection
764 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"I try to write in a way where you care deeply what the next paragraph will be. I hear the rhythm of prose and that, to me, distinguishes great writing from ordinary writing. By the way, I don't even claim that I'm good. I claim that I value it."
"When I was a kid, I thought that if everyone looked up the way I did then everyone would want to study the universe just like me - how could they not? This naiveté is what tells me that my interest was more a calling than a rational comparative assessment about what to be when I grew up."
"We account for all the matter and energy that we're familiar with, measure up how much gravity it should have, it's one-sixth of the gravity that's actually operating on the universe. We call that dark matter. It really should be called dark gravity. We don't know what that is."
"America has an economy reversing relative to other nations in the world. And I want to turn that around. And one way I know to turn it around is to get everyone excited about what it is to innovate again."
"Nothing is a thing: it's nothing. So I can imagine a place where there's not even nothing."
"There are two kinds of comments that I get. One is, oh, you're such a natural up there, and the other one is, you're working hard up there. And the ones who say I'm working hard are teachers, they're the educators; they're the people who are the performers. It's a huge investment of my psycho-emotional energy to pull that off and to make it look smooth."
"Curiosity is missing. Curiosity in particular is something that the system, not only the educational system but, the parental... what you do as a parent at home."
"So this show [Cosmos] does not only operate on you intellectually, because telling you stories of how science works and why it works and what was discovered and why it matters, but combines that with stunning visualizations of the cosmos. This has the chance of affecting you intellectually and emotionally, and as well as even spiritually, because the wonder and awe of the universe are especially potent when presented in this way.""
"Curiosity is unknown. All adults were once kids and once curious, but as adults you don't remember that and you see curiosity when it's expressed in children as a pathway to household disaster. They're simply exploring their environment, manifesting their curiosity. So what you need to do is create an environment where curiosity is rewarded rather than punished, or thwarted."
"If you don't question you're stuck within a pre-existing parameters of knowledge. Questions are what take you outside of those parameters."
"These are two different exercises. One of them is, "You don't know and I know, so just shut up and listen," and the other one is, you're curious and you're learning, and I have a way where you can learn this so you'll know it as well. And when you know it, and know why you know it, then you don't have to reference me ever again because you take ownership of the knowledge, and you can then share it with someone else."
"I don't even understand why I have 1.7 million Twitter followers. Every day, I want to remind them and say, "Do you realize I'm an astrophysicist? Do you know what you're doing here?""
"When NASA makes discoveries they are profound and they make headlines, everyone takes notice. It drives dialogue and, today, it would drive the blogosphere. It would drive the projects the kids do in school. So you wouldn't even need programs to try and stimulate curiosity. You wouldn't need programs to try to convince people that science literacy is good. Because they're going to want to participate on this epic adventure that we call space exploration."
"I never volunteer to talk about god or religion, but people feel compelled to talk about it."
"All the great advances in cinema came about from technology. The 3-D camera was not invented by a movie director. The new industries are driven by the innovations in science and technology."
"I don't ever tell people what to do! Even if it seems and feels that way sometimes, I don't think I should tell a person how to spend their money. I try not to tell people what to read."
"That's the point, to get the people who wouldn't otherwise think to eavesdrop on a conversation that involves science."
"No one is saying you're possessed by the devil anymore except the most ignorant of people in modern culture."
"Life existed on Earth for nearly four billion years before anything remotely resembling a human being showed up. And even then, when we started to branch off from other apes about 10,000,000 years ago, our ancestors looked pretty different."
"I like seeing how people have succeeded when others would have presumed they would have failed, and others just go along with whatever everyone else does."