A Quote by Neil deGrasse Tyson

Aliens might be surprised to learn that in a cosmos with limitless starlight, humans kill for energy sources buried in the sand

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Quote Topics

Aliens Buried Cosmos Energy Energy Sources Humans Learn Limitless Might Sand Sources Starlight Surprised

Quote Author

Neil deGrasse Tyson
American - Scientist
Born: October 5, 1958

I think humans are stupid. We fight and kill each other. I think that's dumb. Aliens would be smarter than that and wouldn't approach things on that level. I can't really fathom it being a negative thing for aliens to visit.

Michelle Rodriguez

Infinity is present in each part. A loving smile contains all art. The motes of starlight spark and dart. A grain of sand holds power and might.

Madeleine L'Engle

What distinguishes us humans from animals is our conscience. Once our conscience is gone we lose our humanness. Without conscience, humans can be far more dangerous than beasts. Beasts kill for food, humans kill for ideology. Beasts kill just enough to eat. Humans can kill endlessly.

Ali Sina

In vulgar usage, progress has come to mean limitless movement in space and time, accompanied, necessarily, by an equally limitless command of energy: culminating in limitless destruction.

Lewis Mumford

Mankind has always drawn from outside sources of energy. This island was the first to harness coal and steam. But our present sources stand in the ratio of a million to one, compared with any previous sources. The release of atomic energy will change the whole structure of society.

Frederick Soddy

What do you have when you have an agent buried up to his neck in sand? Not enough sand.

Pat Williams

It's a slow process, but it is scary, because if someone can control your energy sources, they can control you. We are already being told what light bulbs we can and cannot use...through legislation. We are being forced to fund research into alternative energies sources that are inefficient, and that cause the price of food, energy, and everything else to rise...through legislation...rather than allow free enterprise to allocate funds to those energy sources that will survive through good old American innovation!

Mike Thompson

The most attractive habitats for synthetic sentience might be the vicinities of exceptional sources of energy - for example black holes, or even the neighbourhoods of large stars, which routinely boil off the energy of ten thousand suns. These are the destinations they may seek.

Seth Shostak

Surveying the available alternative energy sources for criteria such as energy density, environmental impacts, reliance on depleting raw materials, intermittency versus constancy of supply, and the percentage of energy returned on the energy invested in energy production, none currently appears capable of perpetuating this kind of society.

Richard Heinberg

Just as fossil fuels from conventional sources are finite and are becoming depleted, those from difficult sources will also run out. If we put all our energy and resources into continued fossil fuel extraction, we will have lost an opportunity to have invested in renewable energy.

David Suzuki

To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational. The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like.

Stephen Hawking

Far from feeling dwarfed by the vast reaches and energy of the cosmos, what we really learn is that we are the most remarkable and complicated product of cosmic evolution, and our potential is unlimited.

Sandra Faber

During my study of happiness, I noticed something that surprised me: I often learn more from one person's highly idiosyncratic experiences than I do from sources that detail universal principles or cite up-to-date studies.

Gretchen Rubin

I'm very protective of my energy. You have to protect your energy around outside sources because your positive energy can be canceled out by someone's dark energy.