Stephen Hawking - Quotes and Proverbs

Stephen Hawking has surprised the world with his research on black holes. He also left us some quotes that make you think. This page is a collection of quotes by Stephen Hawking.

Showing results 1 to 50 of 68

A neutron walks into a bar and asks "how much for a beer?" The bartender says, "for you? no charge."

Stephen Hawking

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

Stephen Hawking

Before we understand science, it is natural to believe that God created the universe.

Stephen Hawking

Even if it turns out that time travel is impossible, it is important that we understand why it is impossible.

Stephen Hawking

For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination. We learned to talk and we learned to listen. 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

However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.

Stephen Hawking

I am just a child who has never grown up. I still keep asking these 'how' and 'why' questions. Occasionally, I find an answer.

Stephen Hawking

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

I believe things cannot make themselves impossible.

Stephen Hawking

I can't disguise myself with a wig and dark glasses - the wheelchair gives me away.

Stephen Hawking

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

I have wondered about time all my life.

Stephen Hawking

I hope I have helped to raise the profile of science and to show that physics is not a mystery but can be understood by ordinary people.

Stephen Hawking

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.

Stephen Hawking

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

I think those who have a terminal illness and are in great pain should have the right to choose to end their own life, and those that help them should be free from prosecution.

Stephen Hawking

I'm an atheist.

Stephen Hawking

I'm not afraid of death, but I'm in no hurry to die.

Stephen Hawking

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

Stephen Hawking

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.

Stephen Hawking

Imaginary time is a new dimension, at right angles to ordinary, real time.

Stephen Hawking

In the past, there was active discrimination against women in science. That has now gone, and although there are residual effects, these are not enough to account for the small numbers of women, particularly in mathematics and physics.

Stephen Hawking

Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.

Stephen Hawking

It is generally recognized that women are better than men at languages, personal relations and multitasking, but less good at map-reading and spatial awareness. It is therefore not unreasonable to suppose that women might be less good at mathematics and physics. It is not politically correct to say such things. ... But it cannot be denied that there are differences between men and women. Of course, these are differences between the averages only. There are wide variations about the mean.

Stephen Hawking

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

Stephen Hawking

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.

Stephen Hawking

Life would be tragic if it weren't funny.

Stephen Hawking

Many people find the universe confusing - it's not.

Stephen Hawking

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.

Stephen Hawking

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

My ideal role would be a baddie in a James Bond film. I think the wheelchair and the computer voice would fit the part.

Stephen Hawking

No one can resist the idea of a crippled genius.

Stephen Hawking

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

Stephen Hawking

Nothing cannot exist forever.

Stephen Hawking

One can't predict the weather more than a few days in advance.

Stephen Hawking

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

People who boast about their I.Q. are losers.

Stephen Hawking

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

Stephen Hawking

Primitive life is very common and intelligent life is fairly rare. Some would say it has yet to occur on Earth.

Stephen Hawking

Quiet people have the loudest minds.

Stephen Hawking

Science is increasingly answering questions that used to be the province of religion.

Stephen Hawking

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

Some people would claim that things like love, joy and beauty belong to a different category from science and can't be described in scientific terms, but I think they can now be explained by the theory of evolution.

Stephen Hawking

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

Stephen Hawking

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.

Stephen Hawking

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

Stephen Hawking

The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.

Stephen Hawking

The human failing I would most like to correct is aggression. It may have had survival advantage in caveman days, to get more food, territory or partner with whom to reproduce, but now it threatens to destroy us all.

Stephen Hawking