Quotes by Stephen Hawking

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.

— Stephen Hawking

Wisdom

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

— Stephen Hawking

Life

Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.

— Stephen Hawking

Wisdom

While physics and mathematics may tell us how the universe began, they are not much use in predicting human behavior because there are far too many equations to solve. I'm no better than anyone else at understanding what makes people tick, particularly women.

— Stephen Hawking

Life

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

Wisdom

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

— Stephen Hawking

Wisdom

We are in danger of destroying ourselves by our greed and stupidity. We cannot remain looking inwards at ourselves on a small and increasingly polluted and overcrowded planet.

— Stephen Hawking

Wisdom

In my school, the brightest boys did math and physics, the less bright did physics and chemistry, and the least bright did biology. I wanted to do math and physics, but my father made me do chemistry because he thought there would be no jobs for mathematicians.

— Stephen Hawking

Wisdom

Science is not only a disciple of reason but, also, one of romance and passion.

— Stephen Hawking

Love

A few years ago, the city council of Monza, Italy, barred pet owners from keeping goldfish in curved bowls... saying that it is cruel to keep a fish in a bowl with curved sides because, gazing out, the fish would have a distorted view of reality. But how do we know we have the true, undistorted picture of reality?

— Stephen Hawking

Wisdom

Life would be tragic if it weren't funny.

— Stephen Hawking

Life

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

Wisdom

Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge.

— Stephen Hawking

Education

The past, like the future, is indefinite and exists only as a spectrum of possibilities.

— Stephen Hawking

Hope

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.

— Stephen Hawking

Life

Science is beautiful when it makes simple explanations of phenomena or connections between different observations. Examples include the double helix in biology and the fundamental equations of physics.

— Stephen Hawking

Education

If the rate of expansion one second after the Big Bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million, it would have recollapsed before it reached its present size. On the other hand, if it had been greater by a part in a million, the universe would have expanded too rapidly for stars and planets to form.

— Stephen Hawking

Wisdom

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

Life

I would like nuclear fusion to become a practical power source. It would provide an inexhaustible supply of energy, without pollution or global warming.

— Stephen Hawking

Wisdom

We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special.

— Stephen Hawking

Wisdom

Obviously, because of my disability, I need assistance. But I have always tried to overcome the limitations of my condition and lead as full a life as possible. I have traveled the world, from the Antarctic to zero gravity.

— Stephen Hawking

Life

Stem cell research is the key to developing cures for degenerative conditions like Parkinson's and motor neuron disease from which I and many others suffer. The fact that the cells may come from embryos is not an objection, because the embryos are going to die anyway.

— Stephen Hawking

Wisdom

I was born on January 8, 1942, exactly three hundred years after the death of Galileo. I estimate, however, that about two hundred thousand other babies were also born that day. I don't know whether any of them was later interested in astronomy.

— Stephen Hawking

Life

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.

— Stephen Hawking

Wisdom