Neil deGrasse Tyson Quotes

You should not believe a thing only because you like to believe it. We call that 'Diax's Rake.

I’m a skeptic not because I do not want to believe, but because I want to know. How can we tell the difference between what we would like to be true and what is actually true? The answer is science.

Science is a method to keep yourself from kidding yourself.

If we bring not the good courage of minds covetous of truth, and truth only, prepared to hear all things, and decide upon all things, according to evidence, we should do more wisely to sit down contented in ignorance, than to bestir ourselves only to reap disappointment.

Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself.

We need to take a step back and realize that not everything we encounter is true. You don't want to be gullibly accepting everything as true, but you don't want to be cynically rejecting everything as false. You want to take your time to evaluate the information.

As a general rule, if you want to get at the truth - hear both sides and believe neither.

I see men ordinarily more eager to discover a reason for things than to find out whether the things are so.

Science is a way to not fool ourselves.

Why do I want to believe what I believe?... Science, to put it somewhat vulgarly, is a technique to keep yourself from kidding yourself.

Attempting to get at truth means rejecting stereotypes and cliches.

All of us should be on guard against beliefs that flatter ourselves. At the very least, we should check such beliefs against facts.

Dispassionate objectivity is itself a passion, for the real and for the truth.

Doubt the conventional wisdom unless you can verify it with reason and experiment.

Even if I stumble on to the absolute truth of any aspect of the universe, I will not realise my luck and instead will spend my life trying to find flaws in this understanding - such is the role of a scientist.

Be able to notice all the confusion between fact and opinion that appears in the news.

I don't want people to say, 'Something is true because Tyson says it is true.' That's not critical thinking.

I'd rather see folks doubt what's true than accept what isn't.

Everybody is entitled to have an opinion. But it is also useful to have some facts.

Do not believe just because you want to believe.

No one can be a great thinker who does not recognize that as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead.

If there's something you really want to believe, that's what you should question the most.

Inclusiveness isn't what I want to push back against. The obsession with facts is.

You can have your own opinion, but not your own facts.

Most people, in fact, will not take the trouble in finding out the truth, but are much more inclined to accept the first story they hear.