Top 532 Quotes & Sayings by Stephen Hawking
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an English physicist Stephen Hawking.
Last updated on September 20, 2024.
We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet.
I would like nuclear fusion to become a practical power source. It would provide an inexhaustible supply of energy, without pollution or global warming.
With genetic engineering, we will be able to increase the complexity of our DNA, and improve the human race. But it will be a slow process, because one will have to wait about 18 years to see the effect of changes to the genetic code.
I am just a child who has never grown up. I still keep asking these 'how' and 'why' questions. Occasionally, I find an answer.
Nothing cannot exist forever.
Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.
Life would be tragic if it weren't funny.
Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history. Unfortunately, it might also be the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks.
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.
Keeping an active mind has been vital to my survival, as has been maintaining a sense of humor.
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.
People won't have time for you if you are always angry or complaining.
I'm not afraid of death, but I'm in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first.
Even if it turns out that time travel is impossible, it is important that we understand why it is impossible.
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.
Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of.
I was not a good student. I did not spend much time at college; I was too busy enjoying myself.
If I had a time machine, I'd visit Marilyn Monroe in her prime or drop in on Galileo as he turned his telescope to the heavens.
I had a bet with Gordon Kane of Michigan University that the Higgs particle wouldn't be found.
Science is not only a disciple of reason but, also, one of romance and passion.
I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.
There is nothing bigger or older than the universe.
The past, like the future, is indefinite and exists only as a spectrum of possibilities.
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.
Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it.
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.
Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing.
If the rate of expansion one second after the Big Bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million, it would have recollapsed before it reached its present size. On the other hand, if it had been greater by a part in a million, the universe would have expanded too rapidly for stars and planets to form.
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.
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?
Someone told me that each equation I included in the book would halve the sales.
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.
When one's expectations are reduced to zero, one really appreciates everything one does have.
There could be shadow galaxies, shadow stars, and even shadow people.
Science is beautiful when it makes simple explanations of phenomena or connections between different observations. Examples include the double helix in biology and the fundamental equations of physics.
In my opinion, there is no aspect of reality beyond the reach of the human mind.
Women. They are a complete mystery.
My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.
I think the brain is essentially a computer and consciousness is like a computer program. It will cease to run when the computer is turned off. Theoretically, it could be re-created on a neural network, but that would be very difficult, as it would require all one's memories.
I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS. I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived.
We think we have solved the mystery of creation. Maybe we should patent the universe and charge everyone royalties for their existence.
The radiation left over from the Big Bang is the same as that in your microwave oven but very much less powerful. It would heat your pizza only to minus 271.3*C - not much good for defrosting the pizza, let alone cooking it.
If you believe in science, like I do, you believe that there are certain laws that are always obeyed.
We are all now connected by the Internet, like neurons in a giant brain.
Not only does God play dice, but... he sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen.
To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit.
Stem cell research is the key to developing cures for degenerative conditions like Parkinson's and motor neuron disease from which I and many others suffer. The fact that the cells may come from embryos is not an objection, because the embryos are going to die anyway.
Up until the 1920s, everyone thought the universe was essentially static and unchanging in time.
I want to know why the universe exists, why there is something greater than nothing.
Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge.
We are all different. There is no such thing as a standard or run-of-the-mill human being, but we share the same human spirit.
God may exist, but science can explain the universe without the need for a creator.
Time travel used to be thought of as just science fiction, but Einstein's general theory of relativity allows for the possibility that we could warp space-time so much that you could go off in a rocket and return before you set out.
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.
We are the product of quantum fluctuations in the very early universe.
However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.
I believe alien life is quite common in the universe, although intelligent life is less so. Some say it has yet to appear on planet Earth.
People who boast about their I.Q. are losers.
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.
Most sets of values would give rise to universes that, although they might be very beautiful, would contain no one able to wonder at that beauty.
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