Mae Jemison
My perspective is the Earth will be here. It just may not be habitable to our life form. We get confused. We think we're the center of everything.
Intuitive versus analytical? That's a foolish choice. It's foolish, just like trying to choose between being realistic or idealistic. You need both in life.
There is a fascination with the idea that one has 'seen someone else do something' before one can achieve it. Maybe that's true in some cases, but clearly it is not a requirement. I knew what I wanted to do.
What I'm very concerned about is how do we bolster our self-awareness as humans, as biological organisms?
The drills we do, where you're telling kids to memorize things, don't actually work. What works is engaging them and letting them do things and discover things.
I went to school at night in L.A. to brush up on my engineering while I applied to the astronaut program. I really did not know if I would get in. It was the year after the Challenger accident in 1987.
The best way to get students involved in science and want to follow either science careers or incorporate it in their lives or to achieve science literacy is to expose them to the various jobs in STEM. It's broad from biologists to electricians to nanotechnologists to building fusion engines. It's a wide range of things.
As an astronaut, you have a very defined set of tasks to do. Those tasks may require you to work 60, 70 or 80 hours a week.
Don't let anyone rob you of your imagination, your creativity, or your curiosity. It's your place in the world; it's your life. Go on and do all you can with it, and make it the life you want to live.Collection: Inspirational
Never limit yourself because of others' limited imagination; never limit others because of your own limited imagination.Collection: Inspiring
You have the right to be involved. You have something important to contribute, and you have to take the risk to contribute it.Collection: Risk
Never be limited by other people's limited imaginations.Collection: Inspiring
Greatness can be captured in one word: lifestyle. Life is God's gift to you, style is what you make of it.Collection: Greatness
Once I got into space, I was feeling very comfortable in the universe. I felt like I had a right to be anywhere in this universe, that I belonged here as much as any speck of stardust, any comet, any planet.Collection: Science
The thing that I have done throughout my life is to do the best job that I can and to be me.Collection: Jobs
Never be limited by other people's limited imaginations. If you adopt their attitudes, then the possibility won't exist because you'll have already shut it out...You can hear other people's wisdom, but you've got to re-evaluate the world for yourself.Collection: Inspirational
When I'm asked about the relevance to Black people of what I do, I take that as an affront. It presupposes that Black people have never been involved in exploring the heavens, but this is not so. Ancient African empires - Mali, Songhai, Egypt - had scientists, astronomers. The fact is that space and its resources belong to all of us, not to any one group.Collection: Science
The difference between science and the arts is not that they are different sides of the same coin… or even different parts of the same continuum, but rather, they are manifestations of the same thing. The arts and sciences are avatars of human creativity.Collection: Art
The arts and sciences are avatars of human creativity.Collection: Art
Sciences provide an understanding of a universal experience, Arts are a universal understanding of a personal experience... they are both a part of us and a manifestation of the same thing... the arts and sciences are avatars of human creativityCollection: Art
Science provides an understanding of a universal experience, and arts provides a universal understanding of a personal experience.Collection: Art
People always think of technology as something having silicon in it. But a pencil is technology. Any language is technology. Technology is a tool we use to accomplish a particular task and when one talks about appropriate technology in developing countries, appropriate may mean anything from fire to solar electricity.Collection: Country
When God made the color purple, God was just showing off.Collection: God
My parents were comfortable with me exploring areas that they were not proficient in. Some parents just aren't comfortable with that.Collection: Learning