Stephen Hawking Quotes

It often happens that I have an idea, but then I try to fill in the intermediate steps and find they don't work, so I have to give it up.

[Question: What do you think was the most important physics idea to emerge this year?] We won't know for a few years.

We are entering an increasingly dangerous period of our history. But I'm an optimist.

I thought Eddie Redmayne portrayed me very well... At times I thought he was me.

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

One big contribution my father [Stephen Hawking] has made is to show that having a disability does not bar you from leading a full and eventful life.

I have noticed that even those who assert that everything is predestined and that we can change nothing about it still look both ways before they cross the street

My expectations were reduced to zero when I was 21. Everything since then has been a bonus.", December 12, 2004)]

why are we here?where do we come from?traditionally, these are questionsfor philosophy, but philosophy is dead

I regard the afterlife to be a fairy story for people that are afraid of the dark

There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, and science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works.

The people who actually make the advances in theoretical physics don't think in these categories that the philosophers and the historians of science subsequently invent for them

However bad life may seem, where there is life, there is hope.

Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change

There should be no boundaries to human endeavor. (...) However bad life may seem (...) While there’s life, there is hope.

My expectations were reduced to zero when I was 21. Everything since then has been a b

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

What place, then, for a creator?

Stephen Hawking said that his quest is simply "trying to understand the mind of God".

There should be no boundary to human endeavor.

When one's expectations are reduced to zero one really appreciates everything one does have.

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.

If we want to travel into the future, we just need to go fast. Really fast. And I think the only way we're ever likely to do that is by going into space.

I think the human race doesn't have a future if it doesn't go into space.

Perhaps one day I will go into space.

I have wanted to fly into space for many years, but never imagined it would really be feasible.

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.

There is no heaven or afterlife for broken-down computers that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.

God may exist, but science can explain the universe without the need for a creator.

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.

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

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

I have found far greater enthusiasm for science in America than here in Britain. There is more enthusiasm for everything in America.

If you believe in science, like I do, you believe that there are certain laws that are always obeyed.

I believe there are no questions that science can't answer about a physical universe.

I'm never any good in the morning. It is only after four in the afternoon that I get going.

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.

As Irving Good realised in 1965, machines with superhuman intelligence could repeatedly improve their design even further, triggering what Vernor Vinge called a 'singularity.'

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

I think we have a good chance of surviving long enough to colonize the solar system.

Not only does God play dice, but... he sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen.

I don't have much positive to say about motor neurone disease. But it taught me not to pity myself because others were worse off, and to get on with what I could still do.

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.

Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious.

God is the name people give to the reason we are here. But I think that reason is the laws of physics rather than someone with whom one can have a personal relationship. An impersonal God.