Stephen hawking quotes

The more you learn, the more you know. The more you know, the more you forget. The more you forget, the less you know. So why bother to learn.

Doing a job RIGHT the first time gets the job done. Doing the job WRONG fourteen times gives you job security.

Plagiarism saves time.

One can see from space how the human race has changed the Earth. Nearly all of the available land has been cleared of forest and is now used for agriculture or urban development. The polar icecaps are shrinking and the desert areas are increasing. At night, the Earth is no longer dark, but large areas are lit up. All of this is evidence that human exploitation of the planet is reaching a critical limit. But human demands and expectations are ever-increasing. We cannot continue to pollute the atmosphere, poison the ocean and exhaust the land. There isn't any more available.

The human race is just a chemical scum on a moderate-sized planet, orbiting around a very average star in the outer suburb of one among a hundred billion galaxies. We are so insignificant that I can't believe the whole universe exists for our benefit. That would be like saying that you would disappear if I closed my eyes.

When I hear of Schrödinger's cat, I reach for my pistol.

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.

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.

It is reasonable to ask who or what created the universe, but if the answer is God, then the question has merely been deflected to that of who created God.

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?

If at first you don't succeed, try management.

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

If the government is covering up knowledge of aliens, they are doing a better job of it than they do at anything else.

The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.

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. 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.

Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it.

Nothing is fool-proof to a sufficiently talented fool.

I think the human race has no future if it doesn't go into space.

I've noticed that even people who believe in fate look both ways before crossing the street.

Scientific discovery may not be better than sex, but the satisfaction lasts longer.

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’m not religious in the normal sense. 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.

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.

Quiet people have the loudest minds.

It is not clear that intelligence has any long-term survival value.

Look up at the stars, not down at your feet.

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.

What was God doing before the divine creation? Was he preparing hell for people who asked such questions?

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.

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

Galileo, perhaps more than any other single person, was responsible for the birth of modern science.

I think the human race doesn't have a future if we don't go into space. We need to expand our horizons beyond planet Earth if we are to have a long-term future. We cannot remain looking inward at ourselves on a small and increasingly polluted and overcrowded planet. We need to look outward to the wider universe.

The fact that no one understands you doesn't mean you're an artist.

Science can explain the universe without the need for a Creator.

There should be no boundaries to human endeavor. However bad life may seem, there is always hope.

Theology is unnecessary.

I'm not afraid of death, but I'm in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first.

In A Brief History Of Time I used the word "God" like Einstein did as a shorthand for the laws of physics. However, this is not what most people mean by God, so I have decided not to use the term. The laws of physics can explain the universe without the need for a God.

Do you believe in first love - or should I pass by again?

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.

It is very important for young people keep their sense of wonder and keep asking why.

So long as the Universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the Universe is really completely self-contained, it would have neither beginning or end, it would simply be. What place then for a creator?

One can't prove that God doesn't exist. But science makes God unnecessary. The laws of physics can explain the universe without the need for a creator.

Its a crazy world out there. Be curious.

There should be a better way to start a day than waking up every morning.

I'd say I don't believe in God, but I'm afraid He might hear me.

So great a contribution to physics was Two New Sciences that scholars have long maintained that the book anticipated Isaac Newton's laws of motion.

The universe doesn't allow perfection.

One is always a long way from solving a problem until one actually has the answer.

There is no prescribed route to follow to arrive at a new idea. You have to make the intuitive leap.

We should seek the greatest value of our action.

I believe things cannot make themselves impossible.

Latest survey shows that 3 out of 4 people make up 75% of the world's population.

The universe and the Laws of Physics seem to have been specifically designed for us. If any one of about 40 physical qualities had more than slightly different values, life as we know it could not exist: Either atoms would not be stable, or they wouldn't combine into molecules, or the stars wouldn't form heavier elements, or the universe would collapse before life could develop, and so on...

Nothing is better than reading and gaining more and more knowledge.

A person who smiles in the face of adversity...probably has a scapegoat.

So when people ask me if I believe 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 for directions to the edge of the earth; the earth is a sphere, it doesn't have an edge, so looking for it is a futile exercise.

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

We are very, very small, but we are profoundly capable of very, very big things.

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

I have experimental evidence that time travel is not possible.

The wise never marry, and when they marry they become otherwise.

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.

Disability need not be an obstacle to success.

Life would be tragic if it weren't funny.

There is no unique picture of reality.

Nothing cannot exist forever.

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.

Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.

Once I wept for I had no shoes. Then I met a man with no feet, so I took his shoes. I mean, it wasn't as if he was going to need them.

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

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.

Jesus loves you, but everyone else thinks you're an ass.

I am just a child who has never grown up. I still keep asking these 'how' and 'why' questions. Occasionally, I find an answer.

I'm really easy to get along with once you see it my way.

Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing.

Save water. Shower with your girlfriend.

I may contradict myself, but at least I don't contradict myself.

Maybe I'm being a bit harsh on philosophers, but they have not been very kind to me... I have been variously called nominalist, an instrumentalist, a positivist, a realist, and several other ists. The technique seems refutation by denigration: If you can attach a label to my approach, you don't have to say what is wrong with it... I am sure that Einstein, Heisenberg and Dirac didn't worry about whether they were realists or instrumentalists.

Half the battle is just showing up.

Every man should marry. After all, happiness is not the only thing in life.

Although I cannot move, and I have to speak through a computer, in my mind, I am free.

Do you ever wonder how much deeper the ocean would be without sponges?

I don't fear God- I fear His believers.

One should love animals. They are so tasty.

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

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

Go the extra mile. It makes your boss look like an incompetent slacker.

Money is not everything. There's Master card & Visa.

Women. They are a complete mystery.

People who boast about their I.Q. are losers.

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.

If time travel is possible, where are the tourists from the future?

While there's life, there is hope.

The meaning in life is not out there but inbetween our ears. In many ways this makes us the lords of creation.

Nuclear weapons need large facilities, but genetic engineering can be done in a small lab. You can't regulate every lab in the world. The danger is that either by accident or design, we create a virus that destroys us.

We are only the temporary custodians of the particles which we are made of. They will go on to lead a future existence in the enormous universe that made them

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.

It is all right to make mistakes; nothing is perfect because with perfection, we would not exist.

We live in the most probable of all possible worlds.

What I have learned from life is to make the most of what you have got.

It is my view that 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. There is probably 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.

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

The human failing I would most like to correct is aggression. It may have had survival advantage in caveman days, to get more food, territory or a partner with whom to reproduce, but now it threatens to destroy us all.

Love the neighbor. But don't get caught.

I believe everyone should have a broad picture of how the universe operates and our place in it. It is a basic human desire. And it also puts our worries in perspective.

The idea that we are alone in the universe seems to me completely implausible and arrogant, considering the number of planets and stars that we know exist, it's extremely unlikely that we are the only form of evolved life.

Without imperfection, you or I would not exist.

Never put off the work till tomorrow what you can put off today.

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

The laws of science do not distinguish between the past and the future.

When the going gets tough, the tough take a coffee break.

What is important is that we have the ability to create.

To understand recursion, one must first understand recursion.

[I think the most about] women. They are a complete mystery.

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

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.

So remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and hold on to that childlike wonder about what makes the universe exist.

We don't let animals suffer, so why humans?

When something is made idiot proof, they will just make better idiots.

The idea of 10 dimensions might sound exciting, but they would cause real problems if you forget where you parked your car.

The thing about smart people is that they seem like crazy people to dumb people.

Mankind's greatest achievements have come about by talking and its greatest failures by not talking. It doesn’t have to be like this.

Science is beautiful when it makes simple explanations of phenomena or connections between different observations.