Neil deGrasse Tyson Quotes

Having a self, even a simple self, allows you to look into the world and put a mark over what is more important and less important. It's a way of classifying the world in terms of your own needs.

Nobody else can tell you what you are.

I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all.

The minute you or anybody else knows what you are you are not it, you are what you or anybody else knows you are and as everything in living is made up of finding out what you are it is extraordinarily difficult really not to know what you are and yet to be that thing.

I don't like defining myself. I just am.

Who am I, really? I prefer to leave that up to the observer, because I will never finish answering that.

I've never allowed my political life, or my life as a basketball player, to define the totality of my humanity or my personality.

I love tennis. But even if I become the greatest of all time, I still don't only want to be defined by tennis. I'm my own person. And I want to be remembered as I really am.

Some people want to define themselves, and they should, as it's part of their identity. For me personally, I've never really had a label for myself.

The secret of success in every field is redefining what success means to you. It can't be your parent's definition, the media's definition, or your neighbor's definition. Otherwise, success will never satisfy you.

If I am not what you say I am, then you are not who you think you are.

You are what your record says you are.

We live our lives based on who we think we are.

I've come to believe that whoever I am didn't start on December 14, 1946, and isn't going to end on whatever that mysterious date is in the future.

I am what is mine. Personality is the original personal property.

People know what they see but they don't know what's happening inside. If you want to know who you are and how you feel about yourself, take a look at your environment.

It's a little dangerous for me to get outside myself and think about how I want people to see me.

We have to really educate ourselves in a way about who we are, what our real identity is.

People in life take on certain stories and say, 'I'm going to be defined by this story and I'm going to live up to every inch of this story.' Sometimes you realize the story isn't fulfilling you and in fact you're not living the life that you're given.

If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive.

I know who I am and what I do.

I want to see, that's all. This is my life. I want to see.

You know, most people really don't know me.

I have always felt that I am the sum total of my parts.

Our subjectivity is so completely our own.