“You can’t have people making decisions about the future of the world who are scientifically illiterate. That’s a recipe for disaster. And I don’t mean just whether a politician is scientifically literate, but people who vote politicians into office.”

If each dead person became a ghost, there’d be more than 100 billion of them haunting us all. Creepy, but cool.

Math is the language of the universe. So the more equations you know, the more you can converse with the cosmos.

My goal is not to shove information into your head. It’s to find ways to reignite the curiosity that we all had as children for the natural world. You don’t have to tell a child to explore the backyard.

Knowing how to think empowers you far beyond those who know only what to think.

God displayed a sense of humor when he configured the region between our legs an entertainment complex built around a sewage system.

If we have the power to turn another planet into Earth, then we have the power to turn Earth back into Earth.

When a coincidence seems amazing, that’s because the human mind isn’t wired to naturally comprehend probability & statistics.

Science literacy is a vaccine against the charlatans of the world that would exploit your ignorance.

Science is a philosophy of discovery. Intelligent design is a philosophy of ignorance. You cannot build a program of discovery on the assumption that nobody is smart enough to figure out the answer to a problem.

I love being wrong because that means in that instant, I learned something new that day.

Science is a way of equipping yourself with the tools to interpret what happens in front of you.

When we try to look farther into the universe we come to what appears to be the end of space but actually it’s the beginning of time.

Knowledge of the natural world and how it works should be counted as fundamental to informed governance. You can’t have a functioning democracy, if the electorate is under-informed or, worse, mis-informed.

There’s a saying in the scientific community, that every great truth goes through three phases. First, people deny it. Second, they say that it conflicts with the Bible. Third, they say that they’ve known it all along.

To be scientifically literate is to empower yourself to know when someone else is full of bullshit.

It’s better to understand something than to memorize something.

Decide what you want. Believe you can have it. Believe you deserve it and believe it’s possible for you.

It’s up to the coach to decide who is in the best shape to play each match.

To not move around, observe, and analyze, in order to make the best decisions possible, was to fail as a leader and fail the team.

A leader must lead but also be ready to follow. Sometimes, another member of the team—perhaps a subordinate or direct report—might be in a better position to develop a plan, make a decision, or lead through a specific situation.

You can’t make decisions based on fear and the possibility of what might happen.

I held the snake at VMA’s one time and decided to go ahead 20 years later and become the motherfucking snake myself.

Staying ahead of the curve prevents a leader from being overwhelmed when pressure is applied and enables greater decisiveness.

Instead of letting the situation dictate our decisions, we must dictate the situation.