Neil deGrasse Tyson Quotes

As an educator, I try to get people to be fundamentally curious and to question ideas that they might have or that are shared by others. In that state of mind, they have earned a kind of inoculation against the fuzzy thinking of these weird ideas floating around out there. So rather than correct the weird ideas, I would rather them to know how to think in the first place. Then they can correct the weird idea themselves.

What I always liked about Socrates was his insistence on questioning things for the sake of reaching some sort of clarity - even if it is only clarity about the gaps in our knowledge.

The curiosity of the human mind is essential if you want citizens who think rather than accept the first nonsense they come to.

The key to wisdom is this - constant and frequent questioning, for by doubting we are led to question and by questioning we arrive at the truth.

Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.

It is important that students bring a certain …, irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is known, but to question it.

An intelligent mind is an inquiring mind. It is not satisfied with explanation, with conclusions. Nor is it a mind that believes, because belief is again another form of conclusion.

Neither acquiescence in skepticism nor acquiescence in dogma is what education should produce.

We must strive for literacy and education that teach us to never quit questioning and probing at the assumptions of the day.

Philosophy has to be enquiring; it can take nothing on faith, and its methods are based not on the blind acceptance of authority, but on establishing truths by reason and argument.

The skeptic does not mean him who doubts, but him who investigates or researches, as opposed to him who asserts and thinks that he has found.

The first step towards philosophy is incredulity.

I think that probably the most important thing about our education was that it taught us to question even those things we thought we knew. To say you've got to inquire, you've got to be testing your knowledge all the time in order to be more effective in what you're doing.

Education has failed in a very serious way to convey the most important lesson science can teach: skepticism.

Large skepticism leads to large understanding. Small skepticism leads to small understanding. No skepticism leads to no understanding.

I love to doubt as well as know.

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

To counter the avoidance of intellectual challenge and responsibility, we must reduce the domination of certainty in education.

Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing.

I'm a huge believer in learning anything from multiple points of view.

I believe everything learned in college is an answer to a question that someone has posed. Questions get posed differently and the answers that come back transport us to places we never knew existed.

Constant and frequent questioning is the first key to wisdom … For through doubting we are led to inquire, and by inquiry we perceive the truth.

A healthy skepticism, regularly exercised…

Skepticism is the lifeblood of scientific progress. By constantly asking whether there is a different answer, a better approach or an alternative view, scientists drive improvements and innovations that ultimately benefit everyone. It is not “antiscience” to be skeptical—it’s definitively pro-science.

It is not the least service which a college or university may render to those under its instruction, to habituate them to looking not only patiently but methodically on both sides, before adopting any conclusion upon controverted issues.