Many people feel small because they're small and the universe is big, but I feel big.
Interpretation
This quote conveys a sense of self-empowerment and perspective in the face of the vast universe.
In this quote, Neil Degrasse Tyson expresses an uplifting perspective on individual significance in the context of the immense universe. While many may feel diminished by the scale of everything around them, he chooses to embrace a sense of greatness and purpose, highlighting the idea that oneβs perception can redefine their sense of self-worth and importance.
In practice
In a motivational speech, to encourage students to believe in their potential.
The problem is that many people operate on the assumption that NASA should go to Congress every year with hat in hand and justify it every year. Well, I see it as the greatest economic driver that there ever was. Economic drivers don't need justification.
The press still thinks [global warming] is controversial. So they find the 1% of the scientists and put them up as if they're 50% of the research results. You in the public would have no idea that this is basically a done deal and that we're on to other problems, because the journalists are trying to give it a 50/50 story. It's not a 50/50 story. It's not. Period.
As a scientist, I want to go to Mars and back to asteroids and the Moon because I'm a scientist. But I can tell you, I'm not so naive a scientist to think that the nation might not have geopolitical reasons for going into space.
In just one year, the expenditure of of the U.S.'s military budget is equivalent to the entire 50-year running budget of NASA combined.
One of my great laments is that education today seems to have... be less about passion and more about process, more about tactic or technique.
Lots of people think, well, we're humans; we're the most intelligent and accomplished species; we're in charge. Bacteria may have a different outlook: more bacteria live and work in one linear centimeter of your lower colon than all the humans who have ever lived. That's what's going on in your digestive tract right now. Are we in charge, or are we simply hosts for bacteria? It all depends on your outlook.
It is a question of building which is at the root of the social unrest of today: architecture or revolution.
For pain words are lacking. There should be cries, cracks, fissures, whiteness passing over chintz covers, interference with the sense of time, of space ; the sense also of extreme fixity in passing objects ; and sounds very remote and then very close ; flesh being gashed and blood sparting, a joint suddenly twisted - beneath all of which appears something very important, yet remote, to be just held in solitude.β β Virginia Woolf, The Waves
There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.
. . . More things are wrought by prayer Than this world dreams of. Wherefore let thy voice Rise like a fountain for me night and day. For what are men better than sheeps or goats That nourish a blind life within the brain, If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer Not only for themselves but for those who call them friend? For so this whole round earth is every way Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.
Countries that perceive themselves to be vulnerable can be expected to try to redress that vulnerability - and in some cases, they will pursue clandestine weapons programs.
The only boundaries we have are in form. There are no obstacles in thought.
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