Which are your favorite Stephen Hawking quotes?
Stephen Hawking is one of the most popular physicists worldwide. He was diagnosed with ALS, a form of Motor Neurone Disease, at the age of 21, but didn’t let that stop him from living an amazing life.
Hawking started a family, published many theories and best-selling books, and has become one of the most respected people in his field.
We’ve put together this whopping collection of the 65 best Stephen Hawking quotes of all time:
65 Stephen Hawking Quotes
1. “Aggression, humanity’s greatest vice, will destroy civilization.” – Stephen Hawking
2. “However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.” – Stephen Hawking
3. “I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I’m not afraid of death, but I’m in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first.” – Stephen Hawking
4. “I was never top of the class at school, but my classmates must have seen potential in me, because my nickname was ‘Einstein.’” – Stephen Hawking
5. “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.” – Stephen Hawking
6. “It is not clear that intelligence has any long-term survival value.” – Stephen Hawking
7. “Life would be tragic if it weren’t funny.” – Stephen Hawking
8. “Not only does God play dice, but… he sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen.” – Stephen Hawking
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9. “Our population and our use of the finite resources of planet Earth are growing exponentially, along with our technical ability to change the environment for good or ill.” – Stephen Hawking
10. “So Einstein was wrong when he said, “God does not play dice.” Consideration of black holes suggests, not only that God does play dice, but that he sometimes confuses us by throwing them where they can’t be seen.” – Stephen Hawking
11. “The downside of my celebrity is that I cannot go anywhere in the world without being recognized. It is not enough for me to wear dark sunglasses and a wig. The wheelchair gives me away.” – Stephen Hawking
12. “To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit.” – Stephen Hawking
13. “We are all now connected by the Internet, like neurons in a giant brain.” – Stephen Hawking
14. “Although I cannot move and I have to speak through a computer, in my mind I am free.” – Stephen Hawking
15. “I am just a child who has never grown up. I still keep asking these ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions. Occasionally, I find an answer.” – Stephen Hawking
16. “I have no idea. People who boast about their IQ are losers.” – Stephen Hawking
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17. “I’m not afraid of death, but I’m in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first.” – Stephen Hawking
18. “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
19. “It matters if you just don’t give up.” – Stephen Hawking
20. “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
21. “Nothing is better than reading and gaining more and more knowledge.” – Stephen Hawking
22. “People who boast about their I.Q. are losers.” – Stephen Hawking
23. “So next time someone complains that you have made a mistake, tell him that may be a good thing. Because without imperfection, neither you nor I would exist.” – Stephen Hawking
24. “The missing link in cosmology is the nature of dark matter and dark energy.” – Stephen Hawking
25. “Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious, and however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do, and succeed at. It matters that you don’t just give up.” – Stephen Hawking
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26. “We each exist for but a short time, and in that time explore but a small part of the whole universe.” – Stephen Hawking
27. “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.” – Stephen Hawking
28. “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
29. “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
30. “If I had to choose a superhero to be, I would pick Superman. He’s everything that I’m not.” – Stephen Hawking
31. “Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.” – Stephen Hawking
32. “It surprises me how disinterested we are today about things like physics, space, the universe and philosophy of our existence, our purpose, our final destination. Its a crazy world out there. Be curious.” – Stephen Hawking
33. “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.” – Stephen Hawking
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34. “One is always a long way from solving a problem until one actually has the answer.” – Stephen Hawking
35. “People won’t have time for you if you are always angry or complaining.” – Stephen Hawking
36. “Some people would claim that things like love, joy and beauty belong to a different category from science and can’t be described in scientific terms, but I think they can now be explained by the theory of evolution.” – Stephen Hawking
37. “The universe does not behave according to our pre-conceived ideas. It continues to surprise us.” – Stephen Hawking
38. “We are all different, but we share the same human spirit. Perhaps it’s human nature that we adapt and survive.” – Stephen Hawking
39. “We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they can reach. If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.” – Stephen Hawking
40. “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.” – Stephen Hawking
41. “I believe things cannot make themselves impossible.” – Stephen Hawking
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42. “I have so much that I want to do. I hate wasting time.” – Stephen Hawking
43. “If the government is covering up knowledge of aliens, they are doing a better job of it than they do at anything else.” – Stephen Hawking
44. “It is a waste of time to be angry about my disability. One has to get on with life and I haven’t done badly. People won’t have time for you if you are always angry or complaining.” – Stephen Hawking
45. “It’s the gravity that shapes the large scale structure of the universe, even though it is the weakest of four categories of forces.” – Stephen Hawking
46. “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
47. “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
48. “Quiet people have the loudest minds.” – Stephen Hawking
49. “Sooner or later disasters such as an asteroid collision or a nuclear war could wipe us all out, But once we spread out into space and establish independent colonies, our future should be safe.” – Stephen Hawking
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50. “Time and space are finite in extent, but they don’t have any boundary or edge. They would be like the surface of the earth, but with two more dimensions.” – Stephen Hawking
51. “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
52. ”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.” – Stephen Hawking
53. “Government works best under the glare of public scrutiny. Absent such scrutiny, abuses occur.” – Stephen Hawking
54. “I don’t think the human race will survive the next thousand years, unless we spread into space.” – Stephen Hawking
55. “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
56. “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
57. “It is no good getting furious if you get stuck. What I do is keep thinking about the problem but work on something else. Sometimes it is years before I see the way forward. In the case of information loss and black holes, it was 29 years.” – Stephen Hawking
58. “Keeping an active mind has been vital to my survival, as has been maintaining a sense of humor.” – Stephen Hawking
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59. “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
60. “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.” – Stephen Hawking
61. “Science is not only a disciple of reason but, also, one of romance and passion.” – Stephen Hawking
62. “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
63. “Time travel used to be thought of as science fiction, but Einstein’s theory of general relativity allows the possibility that we could warp space time so much that you could fly off in a rocket and return before you set out. Unfortunately, it is likely that the warping would destroy the spaceship and maybe the space time, itself.” – Stephen Hawking
64. “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
65. “You cannot understand the glories of the universe without believing there is some Supreme Power behind it.” – Stephen Hawking
Summary
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