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
Topics: Thinking
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
However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.
—Stephen Hawking
Unless mankind redesigns itself by changing our DNA through altering our genetic makeup, computer-generated robots will take over our world.
—Stephen Hawking
Topics: Computers
If we find the answer to that [why it is that we and the universe exist], it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason—for then we would know the mind of God.
—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.
—Stephen Hawking
It matters if you just don’t give up.
—Stephen Hawking
Topics: Persistence, Perseverance
I think computer viruses should count as life. Maybe it says something about human nature, that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive.
—Stephen Hawking
Topics: Computers
When one’s expectations are reduced to zero, one really appreciates everything one does have.
—Stephen Hawking
Topics: Expectation, Appreciation, Realistic Expectations
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
Topics: The Universe
Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.
—Stephen Hawking
Topics: Intelligence
Equations are just the boring part of mathematics. I attempt to see things in terms of geometry.
—Stephen Hawking
There is no prescribed route to follow to arrive at a new idea. You have to make the intuitive leap. But the difference is that once you’ve made the intuitive leap you have to justify it by filling in the intermediate steps. N my case, it often happens that I have an idea, but then I try to fill in the intermediate steps and find that they don’t work, so I have to give it up.
—Stephen Hawking
Topics: Ideas
What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe…Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?
—Stephen Hawking
Topics: The Universe
To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit.
—Stephen Hawking
Topics: Space, Attention
If the human race is to continue for another million years, we will have to boldly go where no one has gone before.
—Stephen Hawking
Topics: Courage, Wildlife
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
Topics: Goals, Goal, Philosophy
There could be whole antiworlds and antipeople made out of antiparticles. However, if you ever meet your antiself, don’t shake hands! You would both vanish in a great flash of light.
—Stephen Hawking
Topics: Science
The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.
—Stephen Hawking
Topics: Enemy
Not only does God play dice, but… he sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen.
—Stephen Hawking
Topics: Chance
It is not clear that intelligence has any long-term survival value.
—Stephen Hawking
Topics: Intelligence, Intellectuals
The whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events do not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order, which may or may not be divinely inspired.
—Stephen Hawking
Topics: Science
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
Each equation…in the book would halve the sales.
—Stephen Hawking
This required abandoning the idea that there is a universal quantity called time that all clocks measure. Instead, everyone would have his own personal time. The clocks of two people would agree if they were at rest with respect to each other but not if they were moving. This has been confirmed by a number of experiments, including one in which an extremely accurate timepiece was flown around the world and then compared with one that had stayed in place. If you wanted to live longer, you could keep flying to the east so the speed of the plane added to the earth.
—Stephen Hawking
Topics: Time
All the evidence shows that God was actually quite a gambler, and the universe is a great casino, where dice are thrown, and roulette wheels spin on every occasion. Over a large number of bets, the odds even out and we can makepredictions; that’s why casino owners are so rich. But over a very small number of rolls of the dice, the uncertainty principle is very important.
—Stephen Hawking
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Albert Einstein German-born Theoretical Physicist
- Werner Heisenberg German Theoretical Physicist
- J. Robert Oppenheimer American Physicist
- Isaac Newton English Physicist
- Freeman Dyson American Physicist, Author
- Arthur Eddington English Astronomer
- Max Planck German Theoretical Physicist
- Niels Bohr Danish Physicist
- Paul Dirac English Theoretical Physicist
- John Herschel English Mathematician
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