Stephen Hawking Quotes

Enjoy the top 567 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Stephen Hawking.

“A million million million million (1 with twenty-four zeros after it) miles, the size of the observable universe.”
— Stephen Hawking —

“I believe the simplest explanation is, there is no God. No one created the universe and no one directs our fate. This leads me to a profound realization that there probably is no heaven and no afterlife either. We have this one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe and for that, I am extremely grateful.”

— Stephen Hawking

“My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.”

— Stephen Hawking

“One of the basic rules of the universe is that nothing is perfect. Perfection simply doesn't exist ... Without imperfection, neither you nor I would exist”

— Stephen Hawking

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

— Stephen Hawking

“It is generally recognised that women are better than men at languages, personal relations and multi-tasking, 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.”

— 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

“What I have done is to show that it is possible for the way the universe began to be determined by the laws of science. In that case, it would not be necessary to appeal to God to decide how the universe began. This doesn't prove that there is no God, only that God is not necessary.”

— Stephen Hawking

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

— Stephen Hawking

“The increase of disorder or entropy is what distinguishes the past from the future, giving a direction to time.”

— Stephen Hawking

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

“If we do discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason - for then we would know the mind of God.”

— Stephen Hawking

“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

“The radiation left over from the Big Bang is the same as that in your microwave oven but very much less powerful. It would heat your pizza only to minus 271.3*C - not much good for defrosting the pizza, let alone cooking it.”

— Stephen Hawking

“In my opinion, there is no aspect of reality beyond the reach of the human mind.”

— Stephen Hawking

“When we understand string theory, we will know how the universe began. It won't have much effect on how we live, but it is important to understand where we come from and what we can expect to find as we explore.”

— Stephen Hawking

“A million million million million (1 with twenty-four zeros after it) miles, the size of the observable universe.”

— Stephen Hawking

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

“I first had the idea of writing a popular book about the universe in 1982. My intention was partly to earn money to pay my daughter's school fees.”

— Stephen Hawking

“I grew up thinking that a research scientist was a natural thing to be.”

— Stephen Hawking

“I was not a good student. I did not spend much time at college; I was too busy enjoying myself.”

— Stephen Hawking

“Cambridge is one of the best universities in the world, especially in my field.”

— Stephen Hawking

“We live in a bewildering world.”

— Stephen Hawking

“For years, my early work with Roger Penrose seemed to be a disaster for science. It showed that the universe must have begun with a singularity, if Einstein's general theory of relativity is correct. That appeared to indicate that science could not predict how the universe would begin.”

— Stephen Hawking

It was Einstein's dream to discover the grand design of the universe, a single theory that explains everything. However, physicists in Einstein's day hadn't made enough progress in understanding the forces of nature for that to be a realistic goal.

— Stephen Hawking

“Keeping an active mind has been vital to my survival, as has been maintaining a sense of humor.”

— Stephen Hawking

“If there were events earlier than this time, then they could not affect what happens at the present time. Their existence can be ignored because it would have no observational consequences.”

— Stephen Hawking

“If a star were a grain of salt, you could fit all the stars visible to the naked eye on a teaspoon, but all the stars in the universe would fill a ball more than eight miles wide.”

— Stephen Hawking

“Throughout history, people have studied pure science from a desire to understand the universe rather than practical applications for commercial gain. But their discoveries later turned out to have great practical benefits.”

— Stephen Hawking

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

— Stephen Hawking

“If you think it is hard to get humans to follow traffic laws, imagine convincing an asteroid to move along an ellipse.”

— Stephen Hawking

“A simpler model, however, was proposed in 1514 by a Polish priest, Nicholas Copernicus. (At first, perhaps for fear of being branded a heretic by his church, Copernicus circulated his model anonymously.) His idea was that the sun was stationary at the center and that the earth and the planets moved in circular orbits around the sun.”

— Stephen Hawking

“Einstein never accepted that the universe was governed by chance;”

— Stephen Hawking

The microwave background indicated that the universe had had a hot, dense stage in the past.

— Stephen Hawking

“Our universe and its laws appear to have a design that both is tailor-made to support us and, if we are to exist, leaves little room for alteration. That is not easily explained, and raises the natural question of why it is that way.”

— Stephen Hawking

“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.”

— Stephen Hawking

“All that my work has shown is that you don't have to say that the way the universe began was the personal whim of God.”

— Stephen Hawking

We could call order by the name of God, but it would be an impersonal God. There's not much personal about the laws of physics.

— Stephen Hawking

“There ought to be something very special about the boundary conditions of the universe and what can be more special than that there is no boundary?”

— Stephen Hawking

“At times, I get very lonely because people are afraid to talk to me or don't wait for me to write a response. I'm shy and tongue-tied at times. I find it difficult to talk to people who I don't know.”

— Stephen Hawking

“Time travel may be possible, but it is not practical.”

— Stephen Hawking

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.

— Stephen Hawking

“Bodies like the earth are not made to move on curved orbits by a force called gravity; instead, they follow the nearest thing to a straight path in a curved space, which is called a geodesic. A geodesic is the shortest (or longest) path between two nearby points.”

— Stephen Hawking

“Success is a relative term. It brings so many relatives.”

— Stephen Hawking

“TEAMWORK ... means never having to take all the blame yourself.”

— Stephen Hawking

“Science will win because it works.”

— Stephen Hawking

Real science can be far stranger than science fiction and much more satisfying.

— Stephen Hawking

“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!”