Stephen Hawking Quotes

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

All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.

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

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

Black holes aren't as black as they are painted.

Earth might one day soon resemble the planet Venus.

Eternity is an awful long time, especially towards the end.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

I believe things cannot make themselves impossible.

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

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.

I have wondered about time all my life.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I was never top of the class at school, but my classmates must have seen potential in me, because my nickname was 'Einstein'.

I'm an atheist.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.

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.