Stephen Hawking Quotes

Gravity is so strong that space is bent round onto itself, making it rather like the surface of the earth. If one keeps traveling in a certain direction on the surface of the earth, one never comes up against an impassable barrier or falls over the edge, but eventually comes back to where one started.

One should love animals. They are so tasty.

I’m the archetype of a disabled genius, or should I say a physically challenged genius, to be politically correct. At least I’m obviously physically challenged. Whether I’m a genius is more open to doubt.

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.

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?

We should seek the greatest value of our action.

I don't think the human race will survive the next thousand years, unless we spread into space. There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet. But I'm an optimist. We will reach out to the stars.

At times, I get very lonely because people are afraid to talk to me or don't wait for me to write a response. I'm shy and tongue-tied at times. I find it difficult to talk to people who I don't know.

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.

Life would be tragic if it weren't funny.

The concern here is that financial services become a kind of tech-led Wild West.

Do you ever wonder how much deeper the ocean would be without sponges?

The Universe in a Nutshell

Many badly needed goals, like fusion and cancer cure, would be achieved much sooner if we invested more.

The fact that no one understands you doesn't mean you're an artist.

No one undertakes research in physics with the intention of winning a prize. It is the joy of discovering something no one knew before.

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. By contrast, computers double their speed and memories every 18 months. There is a real danger that computers will develop intelligence and take over. We urgently need to develop direct connections to the brain so that computers can add to human intelligence rather than be in opposition.

All that my work has shown is that you don't have to say that the way the universe began was the personal whim of God.

But a machine that was powerful enough to accelerate particles to the grand unification energy would have to be as big as the Solar System - and would be unlikely to be funded in the present economic climate.

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.

Someone told me that each equation I included in my book would halve the sales. I did put in one equation, Einstein's famous equation, E = MC squared. I hope that this will not scare off half of my potential readers.

I think the next [21st] century will be the century of complexity. We have already discovered the basic laws that govern matter and understand all the normal situations. We don't know how the laws fit together, and what happens under extreme conditions. But I expect we will find a complete unified theory sometime this century. The is no limit to the complexity that we can build using those basic laws.

Science predicts that many different kinds of universe will be spontaneously created out of nothing. It is a matter of chance which we are in.

If human life were long enough to find the ultimate theory, everything would have been solved by previous generations. Nothing would be left to be discovered.

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.

The wise never marry, and when they marry they become otherwise.

So long as the Universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the Universe is really completely self-contained, it would have neither beginning or end, it would simply be. What place then for a creator?

There is a real danger that computers will develop intelligence and take over.

We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldnt want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they can reach.

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

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

Don't be disabled in spirit as well as physically.

Science makes God unnecessary.

Science can explain the universe without the need for a Creator.

All my adult life people have been helping me.

If at first you don't succeed, try management.

If a superior alien civilization sent us a message saying, 'We'll arrive in a few decades', would we just reply, 'OK, call us when you get here - we'll leave the lights on'? Probably not - but this is more or less what is happening with AI.

When I hear of Schrödinger's cat, I reach for my pistol.

I want my books sold on airport bookstalls.

Disability can be no handicap.

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.

Half the battle is just showing up.

There is a very real danger that we will kill everything on this planet now that we have the technological power to do so.

I have experimental evidence that time travel is not possible.

Chaos, when left alone, tends to multiply.

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.

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

I believe in the possible. I believe, small though we are, insignificant though we may be, we can reach a full understanding of the universe. You were right when you said you felt small, looking up at all that up there. We are very, very small, but we are profoundly capable of very, very big things.