Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the Universe going.
Stephen HawkingMaybe I don't have the most common kind of motor neuron disease, which usually kills in two or three years.
Stephen HawkingIf any one of about 40 physical qualities had more than slightly different values, life as we know it could not exist.
Stephen HawkingSo great a contribution to physics was Two New Sciences that scholars have long maintained that the book anticipated Isaac Newton's laws of motion.
Stephen HawkingIf 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.
Stephen Hawking