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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Life would be tragic if it weren't funny.”

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

“Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.”

“There are grounds for cautious optimism that we may now be near the end ofthe search for the ultimate laws of nature.”

“Science can lift people out of poverty and cure disease. That, in turn, will reduce civil unrest.”

“In less than a hundred years, we have found a new way to think of ourselves. From sitting at the center of the universe, we now find ourselves orbiting an average-sized sun, which is just one of millions of stars in our own Milky Way galaxy.”

“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 enjoy all forms of music - pop, classical and opera.”

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

“When people ask me if a god created the universe, I tell them that the question itself makes no sense. Time didn’t exist before the big bang, so there is no time for god to make the universe in. It’s like asking directions to the edge of the earth; The Earth is a sphere; it doesn’t have an edge; so...”

“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 e...”

“Women. They are a complete mystery.”

“We think we have solved the mystery of creation. Maybe we should patent the universe and charge everyone royalties for their existence.”

“No one can resist the idea of a crippled genius.”

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

“As a child, I wanted to know how things worked and to control them. With a friend, I built a number of complicated models that I could control.”

“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.”

“To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit.”

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

“We are all now connected by the Internet, like neurons in a giant brain.”

“Science predicts that many different kinds of universe will be spontaneously created out of nothing. It is a matter of chance which we are in.”

“Time travel was once considered scientific heresy, and I used to avoid talking about it for fear of being labelled a 'crank.'”

“The world has been changing even faster as people, devices and information are increasingly connected to each other. Computational power is growing and quantum computing is quickly being realised. This will revolutionise artificial intelligence with exponentially faster speeds. It will advance encry...”

“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.”

“The media need superheroes in science just as in every sphere of life, but there is really a continuous range of abilities with no clear dividing line.”

“Wagner manages to convey emotion with music better than anyone, before or since.”

“The missing link in cosmology is the nature of dark matter and dark energy.”

“Before I lost my voice, it was slurred, so only those close to me could understand, but with the computer voice, I found I could give popular lectures. I enjoy communicating science. It is important that the public understands basic science, if they are not to leave vital decisions to others.”

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

“A century ago, Albert Einstein revolutionised our understanding of space, time, energy and matter. We are still finding awesome confirmations of his predictions, like the gravitational waves observed in 2016 by the LIGO experiment. When I think about ingenuity, Einstein springs to mind. Where did hi...”

“...it is surely better to strive for a complete understanding than to despair of the human mind.”

“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.”

“Observations indicate that the universe is expanding at an ever increasing rate. It will expand forever, getting emptier and darker.”

“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.”

“There is no God. No-one directs the universe.”

“When I was growing up it was still acceptable—not to me but in social terms—to say that one was not interested in science and did not see the point in bothering with it. This is no longer the case. Let me be clear. I am not promoting the idea that all young people should grow up to be scientists. I...”

“Most people don't have time to master the very mathematical details of theoretical physics.”

“The Planck satellite may detect the imprint of the gravitational waves predicted by inflation. This would be quantum gravity written across the sky.”

“I don't have much positive to say about motor neuron disease, but it taught me not to pity myself because others were worse off, and to get on with what I still could do. I'm happier now than before I developed the condition.”

“Philosophers have not kept up with modern developments in science. Particularly physics.”

“We think that life develops spontaneously on Earth, so it must be possible for life to develop on suitable planets elsewhere in the universe. But we don't know the probability that a planet develops life.”

“So some might imagine that I am an expert on time, although of course these days an expert is not necessarily a good thing to be.”

“The doctor who diagnosed me with ALS, or motor neuron disease, told me that it would kill me in two or three years.”

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

“God not only plays dice, but also sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen.”

“But real science can be far stranger than science fiction, and much more satisfying.”

“Sometimes I wonder if I'm as famous for my wheelchair and disabilities as I am for my discoveries.”

“Theoretical physics is one of the few fields in which being disabled is no handicap - it is all in the mind.”

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

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

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

“I think the discovery of supersymmetric partners for the known particles would revolutionize our understanding of the universe.”

“Maybe I don't have the most common kind of motor neuron disease, which usually kills in two or three years.”

“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.”

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

“And one final point—we never really know where the next great scientific discovery will come from, nor who will make it. Opening up the thrill and wonder of scientific discovery, creating innovative and accessible ways to reach out to the widest young audience possible, greatly increases the chances...”

“At the beginning of the twentieth century we understood the workings of nature on the scales of classical physics that are good down to about a hundredth of a millimetre. The work on atomic physics in the first thirty years of the century took our understanding down to lengths of a millionth of a mi...”

“Die wachsende Fähigkeit der Menschheit, das Universum zu verstehen, hat einen kleinen Winkel der Ordnung in einem zunehmend der Unordnung verfallenden Universum geschaffen.”

“The human mind is an incredible thing. It can conceive of the magnificence of the heavens and the intricacies of the basic components of matter. Yet for each mind to achieve its full potential, it needs a spark. The spark of enquiry and wonder. Often that spark comes from a teacher. Allow me to expl...”

“Time travel used to be thought of as just science fiction, but Einstein's general theory of relativity allows for the possibility that we could warp space-time so much that you could go off in a rocket and return before you set out.”

“With genetic engineering, we will be able to increase the complexity of our DNA, and improve the human race. But it will be a slow process, because one will have to wait about 18 years to see the effect of changes to the genetic code.”

“One way or another, I regard it as almost inevitable that either a nuclear confrontation or environmental catastrophe will cripple the Earth at some point in the next 1,000 years which, as geological time goes, is the mere blink of an eye. By then I hope and believe that our ingenious race will have...”

“People want answers to the big questions, like why we are here. They don’t expect the answers to be easy, so they are prepared to struggle a bit. When people ask me if a God created the universe, I tell them that the question itself makes no sense. Time didn’t exist before the Big Bang so there is n...”

“I use the word “God” in an impersonal sense, like Einstein did, for the laws of nature, so knowing the mind of God is knowing the laws of nature. My prediction is that we will know the mind of God by the end of this century. The one remaining area that religion can now lay claim to is the origin of...”

“The laws of nature are a description of how things actually work in the past, present and future. In tennis, the ball always goes exactly where they say it will. And there are many other laws at work here too. They govern everything that is going on, from how the energy of the shot is produced in th...”

“Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should b...”

“What was God doing before the divine creation?”

“I don't care much for equations myself. This is partly because it is difficult for me to write them down, but mainly because I don't have an intuitive feeling for equations.”

“All my adult life people have been helping me.”