Neil deGrasse Tyson Quotes

Be sure to choose what you believe and why you believe it, because if you don't choose your beliefs, you may be certain that some belief, and probably not a very credible one, will choose you.

The problem I want to talk to you about tonight is the problem of belief. What does it mean to believe? We use this word all the time, and I think behind it lurk some really extraordinary taboos and confusions. What I want to argue tonight is that how we talk about belief- how we fail to criticize or criticize the beliefs of others, has more importance to us personally, more consequence to us personally and to civilization than perhaps anything else that is in our power to influence.

I ask the fundamental question of rationality: Why do you believe what you believe? What do you think you know and how do you think you know it?

One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them. Finding bad reasons for what one believes for other bad reasons-that's philosophy. People believe in God because they've been conditioned to believe in God.

What counts is not what sounds plausible, not what we would like to believe, not what one or two witnesses claim, but only what is supported by hard evidence rigorously and skeptically examined. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

It is no sin to doubt some things, but it may be fatal to believe everything.

Those who believe without reason cannot be convinced by reason.

He who thinks half-heartedly will not believe in God; but he who really thinks has to believe in God.

Belief is in ignorance. If you know, you know. And it is good that if you don’t know, know that you don’t know — the belief can deceive you. The belief can create an atmosphere in your mind, where, without knowing, you start thinking that you know. Belief is not trust, and the more strongly you say that you believe totally, the more you are afraid of the doubt within you.

No matter how honest scientists think they are, they are still influenced by various unconscious assumptions that prevent them from attaining true objectivity. Expressed in a sentence, Fort 's principle goes something like this: People with a psychological need to believe in marvels are no more prejudiced and gullible than people with a psychological need not to believe in marvels.

Even as a youngster, though, I could not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presented danger, the solution was ignorance.

William James used to preach the "will-to-believe." For my part, I should wish to preach the "will-to-doubt." None of our beliefs are quite true; all at least have a penumbra of vagueness and error. What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.

I’m a skeptic not because I do not want to believe, but because I want to know.

The modern materialists are not permitted to doubt; they are forbidden to believe.

Do you think if it was the fairy tale about a man who lived inside of a whale and it was religion that Jack built a beanstalk today, you would know the difference? Why do you believe in one fairy tale and not the other? Just because adults told you it was true and they scared you into believing it, at pain of death, at pain of burning in hell.

Paradigms power perception and perceptions power emotions. Most emotions are responses to perception - what you think is true about a given situation. If your perception is false, then your emotional response to it will be false too. So check your perceptions, and beyond that check the truthfulness of your paradigms - what you believe. Just because you believe something firmly doesn't make it true. Be willing to reexamine what you believe.

The interest I have to believe a thing is no proof that such a thing exists.

Men are most apt to believe what they least understand.

I doubt the fact, to begin with, but if it be so even, what is this but in grand words asking me to believe a thing because I like it.

I must remind you that our credulity is not to be measured by the truth of the things we believe. When men believed that the earthwas flat, they were not credulous: they were using their common sense, and, if asked to prove that the earth was flat, would have said simply, "Look at it." Those who refuse to believe that it is round are exercising a wholesome skepticism.

I'm not superstitious. I don't really believe in star signs, sorry, or superstitions.

It annoys me that the burden of proof is on us. It should be "You came up with the idea. Why do you believe it?" I could tell you I've got superpowers. But I can't go up to people saying "Prove I can't fly." They'd go: "What do you mean 'Prove you can't fly'? Prove you can!"

It's OK to have beliefs, just don't believe in them.

It's the first effect of not believing in God that you lose your common sense.