50 Amazing Quotes From Stephen Hawking

1. 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.
2. However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.
3. 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.
4. Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.
5. 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.
6. Science is not only a disciple of reason but, also, one of romance and passion.
7. People won't have time for you if you are always angry or complaining.
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. 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.
11. I believe things cannot make themselves impossible.
12. Life would be tragic if it weren't funny.
13. 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.
14. The past, like the future, is indefinite and exists only as a spectrum of possibilities.
15. 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.
16. 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.
17. 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.
18. 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.
19. 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.
20. 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.
21. Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge.
22. No one undertakes research in physics with the intention of winning a prize. It is the joy of discovering something no one knew before.
23. When one's expectations are reduced to zero, one really appreciates everything one does have.
24. 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?
25. I would like nuclear fusion to become a practical power source. It would provide an inexhaustible supply of energy, without pollution or global warming.
26. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it.
27. If I had to choose a superhero to be, I would pick Superman. He's everything that I'm not.
28. 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.
29. 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.
30. 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.
31. I am just a child who has never grown up. I still keep asking these 'how' and 'why' questions. Occasionally, I find an answer.
32. 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.
33. We are all different. There is no such thing as a standard or run-of-the-mill human being, but we share the same human spirit.
34. As scientists, we step on the shoulders of science, building on the work that has come before us - aiming to inspire a new generation of young scientists to continue once we are gone.
35. 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.
36. I want to know why the universe exists, why there is something greater than nothing.
37. I used to think information was destroyed in black hole. This was my biggest blunder, or at least my biggest blunder in science.
38. Our minds work in real time, which begins at the Big Bang and will end, if there is a Big Crunch - which seems unlikely, now, from the latest data showing accelerating expansion. Consciousness would come to an end at a singularity.
39. There are no black holes in the sense of regimes from which light can't escape to infinity.
40. My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.
41. 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.
42. 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.
43. 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.
44. There could be shadow galaxies, shadow stars, and even shadow people.
45. We think we have solved the mystery of creation. Maybe we should patent the universe and charge everyone royalties for their existence.
46. Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history. Unfortunately, it might also be the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks.
47. Although September 11 was horrible, it didn't threaten the survival of the human race, like nuclear weapons do.
48. I think the brain is essentially a computer and consciousness is like a computer program. It will cease to run when the computer is turned off. Theoretically, it could be re-created on a neural network, but that would be very difficult, as it would require all one's memories.
49. 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.
50. Even if it turns out that time travel is impossible, it is important that we understand why it is impossible.