A Quote by Neil deGrasse Tyson

Somehow it's O.K. for people to chuckle about not being good at math. Yet if I said, 'I never learned to read,' they'd say I was an illiterate dolt. — © Neil deGrasse Tyson
Somehow it's O.K. for people to chuckle about not being good at math. Yet if I said, 'I never learned to read,' they'd say I was an illiterate dolt.
I've learned a lot just being around LeBron. People say things about him all the time, but he would never say anything back. That's what I learned from him: Don't retaliate to articles or pieces or to things that are said about me.
People in the media and press often say they've never been good at math. It might be that people that consider themselves creative didn't consider themselves good at math or didn't find math interesting at those early stages. And those creative people are disproportionately represented in those influential roles.
We are underbred and low-lived and illiterate; and in this respect I confess I do not make any very broad distinction between theilliterateness of my townsman who cannot read at all and the illiterateness of him who has learned to read only what is for children and feeble intellects. We should be as good as the worthies of antiquity, but partly by first knowing how good they were.
President Bush said that our kids must be taught how to read. He said if his aides never learned to read, they'd never be able to tell him what's in the newspapers every day.
God, the bitter misery that reading works into this world! Everybody knows that - everbody who IS everybody. All the best minds have been off reading for years. Look at the swing La Rouchefoucauld took at it. He said that if nobody had ever learned to read, very few people would be in love. Good for you, La Rouchefoucauld; nice going, boy. I wish I’d never learned to read.
I was always good at math and science, and I never realized that that was unusual or somehow undesirable.
It's really hard to teach me anything. I can't read music. I never learned how to read music. I read books about things and try to learn - I don't like to learn from anybody. Later on I would, once I'd get the hang of things. Like I ride horses, I'm good at that, Western riding. I learned all about it reading and studying. I'm always learning about horses, I like that.
There's still always the possibility that I've gone totally, clinically cuckoo. But somehow I don't think so anymore. An article I once read said that crazy people don't worry about being crazy - that's the whole problem.
I can read books and news articles about people who have excelled, people who have done extremely well in their chosen field, or made a lot of money, or married well, or what have you. When some people read this stuff, they get inspired, but when I read it, it makes me feel worse. Sometimes I wish I had never learned to read.
I noticed there were so many people, especially women, who would come up to me having recognized me from TV and say, 'I heard you were a math person, why math? Oh my gosh, I could never do math!' I could just see their self-esteem crumbling; I thought that was silly, so I wanted to make math more friendly and accessible.
We're growing up with a very illiterate bunch of children who have somehow been taught that film is fact when, in fact, it's invention. Hopefully, an historical film will inspire people to go and read about the history but in the end it is a work of fiction and selection. As for the armour itself, no it wasn't particularly comfortable.
Growing up, I found I was good at two things: Art and Math. To hear my parents say it, though, it was only, 'John is good at Math.
Growing up, I found I was good at two things: Art and Math. To hear my parents say it, though, it was only, 'John is good at Math.'
When people talk to me about the digital divide, I think of it not so much about who has access to what technology as about who knows how to create and express themselves in the new language of the screen. If students aren't taught the language of sound and images, shouldn't they be considered as illiterate as if they left college without being able to read and write?
Educational legislation nowadays is largely in the hands of illiterate people, and the illiterate will take good care that their illiteracy is not made a reproach on them.
It is the public that is illiterate in science and math, a lazy press, and environmental advocacy groups that manufacture fear for misconceptions about energy.
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