Stephen Hawking famous quotes

The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Race #Development #Ends

I think the human race doesn't have a future if we don't go into space. We need to expand our horizons beyond planet Earth if we are to have a long-term future. We cannot remain looking inward at ourselves on a small and increasingly polluted and overcrowded planet. We need to look outward to the wider universe.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Thinking #Space #Race

People won't have time for you if you are always angry or complaining.
-- Stephen Hawking

#People #Complaining #Angry

It is very important for young people keep their sense of wonder and keep asking why.
-- Stephen Hawking

#People #Important #Asking

People who boast about their I.Q. are losers.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Education #Science #People

People think I'm a Simpsons character.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Character #Thinking #People

We have made remarkable progress in the last hundred years, but if we want to continue, our future is in space.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Years #Space #Progress

Being confined to a wheelchair doesn't bother me as my mind is free to roam the universe, but it felt wonderful to be weightless.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Mind #Wonderful #Wheelchairs

My advice to other disabled people would be, concentrate on things your disability doesn't prevent you doing well, and don't regret the things it interferes with. Don't be disabled in spirit, as well as physically.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Regret #People #Advice

Think of our DNA. In the last million years, our DNA hasn't changed at all. It's really much the same as it was in the jungle, a million, two millions years ago. But in the last 200 years, our destructive capacities have increased many, many millions of times over. Why don't we see intelligent signals from outer space? Because in all likelihood, once the civilization reaches the point our civilization has reached, it destroys itself.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Thinking #Intelligent #Years

If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Native American #Discovery #Would Be

I think my dad [ Stephen Hawking] would have been pleased if I had turned out a scientist because he truly believes that is the most interesting career open to anyone. But he also believes that you have to follow your own path in life and so he certainly wasn't going to push me toward theoretical physics when it didn't look like I was going in that direction naturally.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Dad #Believe #Thinking

One of the basic rules of the universe is that nothing is perfect. Perfection simply doesn't exist.....Without imperfection, neither you nor I would exist
-- Stephen Hawking

#Perfect #Universe #Perfection

One big contribution my father [Stephen Hawking] has made is to show that having a disability does not bar you from leading a full and eventful life.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Father #Bars #Doe

We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Stars #Cheer Up #Humility

When I was young, Stephen Hawking wasn't the world's most famous physicist. The fame didn't arrive until the publication of "A Brief History of Time," by which time I was in my late teens. When I was a child, he was well known among physicists, but they are a fairly select, serious bunch, not much given to celebrity idolizing.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Children #Teens #World

Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Inspirational #Life #Motivational

Many badly needed goals, like fusion and cancer cure, would be achieved much sooner if we invested more [in scientific education and research].
-- Stephen Hawking

#Cancer #Goal #Research

I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Life #Change #Philosophy

It should soon be possible dramatically to increase the intelligence and life span of a few individuals [with the help of genetic engineering]. They and their offspring could become a master race. Evolution pays no regard to social justice. It was not fair on the Neanderthals they were replaced by modern humans.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Race #Engineering #Justice

It is a waste of time to be angry about my disability. One has to get on with life and I haven't done badly. People won't have time for you if you are always angry or complaining.
-- Stephen Hawking

#People #Done #Waste

Science fiction can be exciting and very gripping, but it doesn't tell us anything about the universe in which we live.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Fiction #Gripping #Exciting

It is reasonable to ask who or what created the universe, but if the answer is God, then the question has merely been deflected to that of who created God.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Universe

I am damned if I'm going to die before I have unraveled more of the universe
-- Stephen Hawking

#Universe

Our only chance of long-term survival is not to remain lurking on planet Earth, but to spread out into space.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Space #Long #Survival

Then we shall... be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason - for then we would know the mind of God.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Design #Mind #Would Be

I'm a child myself, in the sense that I'm still looking. Children are fascinated by black holes and ask me questions. I find they soon get the idea if it is explained in nontechnical language.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Children #Ideas #Black

I have sold more books on physics than Madonna has on sex.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Sex #Book #Science

Working with my father [Stephen Hawking ] is a great thrill - he has the amazing ability to hold enormous amounts of information in his head.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Father #Thrill #Information

Look up at the stars, not down at your feet.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Stars #Feet #Looks

There are plenty of dead scientists I admire, but I can't think of any living ones. This is probably because it is only in retrospect that one can see who made the important contributions.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Thinking #Important #Retrospect

There is no heaven or afterlife for broken-down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Dark #Afterlife #People

If I have questions about the universe on my mind when I go to bed, I can't turn off. I dream equations all night.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Dream #Night #Mind

I'm not religious in the normal sense. I believe the universe is governed by the laws of science. The laws may have been decreed by God, but God does not intervene to break the laws.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Religious #Believe #Law

I want to encourage public interest in space. I have never let my condition stop me. You only live once.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Space #You Only Live Once #Want

One can see from space how the human race has changed the Earth. Nearly all of the available land has been cleared of forest and is now used for agriculture or urban development. The polar icecaps are shrinking and the desert areas are increasing. At night, the Earth is no longer dark, but large areas are lit up. All of this is evidence that human exploitation of the planet is reaching a critical limit. But human demands and expectations are ever-increasing. We cannot continue to pollute the atmosphere, poison the ocean and exhaust the land. There isn't any more available.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Ocean #Dark #Night

Science can explain the universe without the need for a Creator.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Needs #Creator #Universe

If you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don't throw it away.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Finding Love #Lucky #Remember

In A Brief History Of Time I used the word "God" like Einstein did as a shorthand for the laws of physics. However, this is not what most people mean by God, so I have decided not to use the term. The laws of physics can explain the universe without the need for a God.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Mean #Law #People

The whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events do not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order, which may or may not be divinely inspired.
-- Stephen Hawking

#God #Science #Order

The lesson of the book is that the universe is governed by the laws of science.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Book #Law #Lessons

Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Law #Gravity #Universe

We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Funny #Science #Intelligent

My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Science #Simple #Goal

We are in danger of destroying ourselves by our greed and stupidity. We cannot remain looking inwards at ourselves on a small and increasingly polluted and overcrowded planet.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Stupidity #Greed #Danger

Women. They are a complete mystery.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Mystery

I'm not afraid of death, but I'm in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Want #Firsts #Not Afraid

To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Funny #Crazy #Silly

It is not clear that intelligence has any long-term survival value.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Intelligent #Long #Intelligence

I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We've created life in our own image.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Science #Technology #Thinking

One, remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Two, never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. Three, if you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don't throw it away.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Stars #Giving Up #Philosophy

Life would be tragic if it weren't funny.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Funny #Life #Science

Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Giving #Purpose #Life Is

What was God doing before the divine creation? Was he preparing hell for people who asked such questions?
-- Stephen Hawking

#People #Hell #Creation

If you understand how the universe operates, you control it in a way.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Spring #Way #Universe

The idea that we are alone in the universe seems to me completely implausible and arrogant, considering the number of planets and stars that we know exist, it's extremely unlikely that we are the only form of evolved life.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Stars #Ideas #Numbers

It is all right to make mistakes; nothing is perfect because with perfection, we would not exist.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Mistake #Perfect #Perfection

So next time someone complains that you have made a mistake, tell him that may be a good thing. Because without imperfection, neither you nor I would exist
-- Stephen Hawking

#Mistake #Imperfection #May

Not to take this web of dualities as a sign we are on the right track would be a bit like believing that God put fossils into the rocks in order to mislead Darwin about the evolution of life.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Believe #Rocks #Order

The downside of my celebrity is that I cannot go anywhere in the world without being recognized. It is not enough for me to wear dark sunglasses and a wig. The wheelchair gives me away.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Dark #Science #Giving

It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in just this way, except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us
-- Stephen Hawking

#Way #Would Be #Should

There is no prescribed route to follow to arrive at a new idea. You have to make the intuitive leap.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Ideas #Intuition #Leap

I believe everyone should have a broad picture of how the universe operates and our place in it. It is a basic human desire. And it also puts our worries in perspective.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Believe #Perspective #Worry

I would like nuclear fusion to become a practical power source. It would provide an inexhaustible supply of energy, without pollution or global warming.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Fusion #Energy #Nuclear

What I have done is to show that it is possible for the way the universe began to be determined by the laws of science. In that case, it would not be necessary to appeal to God to decide how the universe began. This doesn't prove that there is no God, only that God is not necessary.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Religious #Science #Law

My expectations were reduced to zero when I was 21. Everything since then has been a bonus.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Zero #Science #Expectations

Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. It matters that you don't just give up.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Stars #Giving Up #Feet

The universe and the Laws of Physics seem to have been specifically designed for us. If any one of about 40 physical qualities had more than slightly different values, life as we know it could not exist: Either atoms would not be stable, or they wouldn't combine into molecules, or the stars wouldn't form heavier elements, or the universe would collapse before life could develop, and so on...
-- Stephen Hawking

#Stars #Law #Quality

Ever since the dawn of civilization, people have not been content to see events as unconnected and inexplicable. They have craved an understanding of the underlying order in the world. Today we still yearn to know why we are here and where we came from. Humanity's deepest desire for knowledge is justification enough for our continuing quest. And our goal is nothing less than a complete description of the universe we live in.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Order #Civilization #Goal

The universe doesn't allow perfection.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Perfection #Universe

Equations are just the boring part of mathematics. I attempt to see things in terms of geometry.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Bored #Boring #Mathematics

So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?
-- Stephen Hawking

#Science #Self #Long

I don't know what my IQ is. People who gloat about their IQ's are losers
-- Stephen Hawking

#People #Loser

Quiet people have the loudest minds.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Quiet People #Fearless #Mind

The human race is just a chemical scum on a moderate-sized planet, orbiting around a very average star in the outer suburb of one among a hundred billion galaxies. We are so insignificant that I can't believe the whole universe exists for our benefit. That would be like saying that you would disappear if I closed my eyes.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Stars #Believe #Eye

Government works best under the glare of public scrutiny. Absent such scrutiny, abuses occur.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Government #Abuse #Glare

In the last 200 years the population of our planet has grown exponentially, at a rate of 1.9% per year. If it continued at this rate, with the population doubling every 40 years, by 2600 we would all be standing literally shoulder to shoulder.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Years #Lasts #Population

Not only does God play dice, but... he sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Science #Play #Dating

Theology is unnecessary.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Unnecessary #Theology

While physics and mathematics may tell us how the universe began, they are not much use in predicting human behavior because there are far too many equations to solve. I'm no better than anyone else at understanding what makes people tick, particularly women.
-- Stephen Hawking

#People #Understanding #Use

I don't think the human race will survive the next thousand years, unless we spread into space.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Thinking #Race #Years

There is no unique picture of reality.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Unique #Reality

Only time - whatever that may be - will tell.
-- Stephen Hawking

#May

I believe in universal health care. And I am not afraid to say so.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Believe #Care #Not Afraid

Science is not only a disciple of reason but, also, one of romance and passion.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Passion #Romance #Reason

Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Discovery #Torches #Quests

Although September 11 was horrible, it didn't threaten the survival of the human race, like nuclear weapons do.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Race #September 11 #Survival

Whether you want to uncover the secrets of the universe, or you just want to pursue a career in the 21st century, basic computer programming is an essential skill to learn
-- Stephen Hawking

#Skills #Careers #Secret

I believe things cannot make themselves impossible.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Believe #Impossible #I Believe

No one can resist the idea of a crippled genius.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Ideas #Genius

All my adult life people have been helping me.
-- Stephen Hawking

#People #Adults #Helping

A few years ago, the city council of Monza, Italy, barred pet owners from keeping goldfish in curved bowls... saying that it is cruel to keep a fish in a bowl with curved sides because, gazing out, the fish would have a distorted view of reality. But how do we know we have the true, undistorted picture of reality?
-- Stephen Hawking

#Reality #Views #Years

Obviously, because of my disability, I need assistance. But I have always tried to overcome the limitations of my condition and lead as full a life as possible. I have traveled the world, from the Antarctic to zero gravity.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Zero #Overcoming #Needs

Someone told me that each equation I included in the book would halve the sales.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Book #Writing #Equations

Using e-mail, I can communicate with scientists all over the world.
-- Stephen Hawking

#World #Mail #Scientist

We think we have solved the mystery of creation. Maybe we should patent the universe and charge everyone royalties for their existence.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Thinking #Patents #Mystery

The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?
-- Stephen Hawking

#Faith #Usual #Doe

We should seek the greatest value of our action.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Good Life #Our Actions #Should

One does not have to appeal to God to set the initial conditions for the creation of the universe, but if one does He would have to act through the laws of physics.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Law #Religion #Atheism

Speech has allowed the communication of ideas, enabling human beings to work together to build the impossible. Mankind's greatest achievements have come about by talking, and its greatest failures by not talking. It doesn't have to be like this. Our greatest hopes could become reality in the future. With the technology at our disposal, the possibilities are unbounded. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.
-- Stephen Hawking

#Communication #Technology #Reality