Stephen Hawking Quotes

Quiet people have the loudest minds.

In effect, we have redefined the task of science to be the discovery of laws that will enable us to predict events up to the limits set by the uncertainty principle.

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

There are grounds for cautious optimism that we may now be near the end ofthe search for the ultimate laws of nature.

Computers double their performance every month.

The thing about smart people is that they seem like crazy people to dumb people.

A picture is worth a thousand words...and uses up a thousand times the memory.

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

Succeed in spite of management.

This required abandoning the idea that there is a universal quantity called time that all clocks measure. Instead, everyone would have his own personal time. The clocks of two people would agree if they were at rest with respect to each other but not if they were moving. This has been confirmed by a number of experiments, including one in which an extremely accurate timepiece was flown around the world and then compared with one that had stayed in place. If you wanted to live longer, you could keep flying to the east so the speed of the plane added to the earth

When I get to heaven I'm gonna find the guy in charge of the weather and kick his rear.

The intelligent beings in these regions should therefore not be surprised if they observe that their locality in the universe satisfies the conditions that are necessary for their existence. It is a bit like a rich person living in a wealthy neighborhood not seeing any poverty.

No one can resist the idea of a crippled genius.

Children in backseats cause accidents. Accidents in backseats cause children.

I think the next century will be the century of complexity.

It matters that you don't just give up.

While there's life, there is hope.

What I meant by 'we would know the mind of God' is, we would know everything that God would know, if there were a God. Which there isn't. I'm an atheist.

Why do we remember the past, but not the future?

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.

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 want to know why the universe exists, why there is something greater than nothing.

Love the neighbor. But don't get caught.

God not only plays dice, he throws them in the corner where you can't see them.

As those who have seen Jurassic Park will know, this means a tiny disturbance in one place, can cause a major change in another. A butterfly flapping its wings can cause rain in Central Park, New York. The trouble is, it is not repeatable. The next time the butterfly flaps its wings, a host of other things will be different, which will also influence the weather. That is why weather forecasts are so unreliable.

What lies north of the North Pole?

If the government is covering up knowledge of aliens, they are doing a better job of it than they do at anything else.

The initial configuration of the universe may have been chosen by God, or it may itself have been determined by the laws of science. In either case, it would seem that everything in the universe would then be determined by evolution according to the laws of science, so it is difficult to see how we can be masters of our fate.

If the total energy of the universe must always remain zero, and it costs energy to create a body, how can a whole universe be created from nothing?

Our population and our use of the finite resources of planet Earth are growing exponentially, along with our technical ability to change the environment for good or ill.

The laws of science do not distinguish between the past and the future.

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

If I knew what was going to happen in ten years I would do it now. I just follow my nose.

Simplicity is a matter of taste

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

The media need superheroes in science just as in every sphere of life, but there is really a continuous range of abilities with no clear dividing line.

Science does not deny religion, it just offers a simpler alternative.

It should soon be possible dramatically to increase the intelligence and life span of a few individuals. 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.

All of my life, I have been fascinated by the big questions that face us, and have tried to find scientific answers to them. If, like me, you have looked at the stars, and tried to make sense of what you see, you too have started to wonder what makes the universe exist.

We are all now connected by the Internet, like neurons in a giant brain.

The universe does not behave according to our pre-conceived ideas. It continues to surprise us.

The universe doesn't allow perfection.

The world has changed far more in the past 100 years than in any other century in history. The reason is not political or economic but technological-technologies that flowed directly from advances in basic science. Clearly, no scientist better represents those advances than Albert Einstein: TIME's Person of the Century.

Though we feel we can choose what we do, our understanding of the molecular basis of biology shows that biological processes are governed by the laws of physics and chemistry and therefore are as determined as the orbits of the planets.

I don't believe that the ultimate theory will come by steady work along existing lines. We need something new. We can't predict what that will be or when we will find it because if we knew that, we would have found it already!

Once I wept for I had no shoes. Then I met a man with no feet, so I took his shoes. I mean, it wasn't as if he was going to need them.

Not to leave planet Earth would be like castaways on a desert island not trying to escape...Sending humans to other planets ... will shape the future of the human race in ways we don't yet understand, and may determine whether we have any future at all.

Nothing is better than reading and gaining more and more knowledge.