Stephen Hawking Quotes

222 Stephen Hawking Quotes

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I would like to be thought of as a scientist who just happens to be disabled, rather than a disabled scientist.
Stephen Hawking

I am just a child that has never grown up. I still keep asking these how and why questions. Occasionally I find an answer.
Stephen Hawking

If you think it is hard to get humans to follow traffic laws, imagine convincing an asteroid to move along an ellipse.
Stephen Hawking

If we can unscrew the front panel of the universe and look behind, we might be able to figure out how the little wheels work and feel that we have some control over what is going on. Fortunately we aren’t called upon to put the universe back together again.
Stephen Hawking

Someone told me that each equation I included in the book would halve the sales.
Stephen Hawking

Nature Abhors a Naked Singularity.
Stephen Hawking

A high proportion of space scientists say their interest in science was sparked by watching the moon landings.
Stephen Hawking

A goal of a base on the Moon by 2020 and of a manned landing on Mars by 2025 would re-ignite the space program and give it a sense of purpose in the same way that President Kennedy’s Moon target did in the 1960s. A new interest in space would also increase the public standing of science generally.
Stephen Hawking

We live in a society that is increasingly governed by science and technology, yet fewer and fewer young people want to go into science.
Stephen Hawking

[On running over toes and ramming a car parked in front of his ramp] A malicious rumour. I’ll run over anyone who repeats it.
Stephen Hawking



[On thoughts of a political career] I was glad I left that job to Tony Blair. I think I get more job satisfaction than he does and I expect my work will last longer.
Stephen Hawking

String theory cannot even describe the structure of the sun, let alone black holes.
Stephen Hawking

[On an accident, I] has an argument with a wall, the wall won.
Stephen Hawking

[On being operated on with only an epidural anaesthetic for a broken hip] [It was] like hearing a Black and Decker drill.
Stephen Hawking

The realization that I had an incurable disease, that was likely to kill me in a few years, was a bit of a shock. How could something like that happen to me? Why should I be cut off like this? However while I had been in hospital, I had seen a boy I vaguely knew die of leukaemia in the bed opposite me. It had not been a pretty sight. Clearly there were people who were worse off than I. At least, my condition didn’t make me feel sick. Whenever I feel inclined to be sorry for myself, I remember that boy.
Stephen Hawking

This is the book of the film of the book. I don’t know if they are planning a film of the book of the film of the book.
Stephen Hawking

Their pea brains cannot possibly grasp the concept.
Stephen Hawking

[On watching the movie Dumb and Dumber] [I’m] Marvelling at the pure genius of it.
Stephen Hawking

[On not yet receiving a Nobel prize] It is better to go on and make new discoveries than hope for a prize for work I did years ago.
Stephen Hawking

[At St. Albans school I] received as good an education or better than I would have at Westminister.
Stephen Hawking



[On biology] Too inexact, too descriptive. [But physics was] the most fundamental of all the sciences.
Stephen Hawking

[On science fiction] I write it, only I like to think it is science fact.
Stephen Hawking

[On being stopped by a tourist in Cambridge and asked if he was Stephen Hawking] The real one was better looking.
Stephen Hawking

[On his lack of privacy] It would be hypocritical to complain. I can generally ignore it by going off to think in 11 dimensions.
Stephen Hawking

A black hole has no hair.
Stephen Hawking

I have only done what I intended to do anyway, before I had ALS. I think the people with the real courage are those worse affected but who don’t get public attention or sympathy. Yet they don’t complain.
Stephen Hawking

There are some things I can’t do, [but] they are mostly things I don’t particularly want to do anyway.
Stephen Hawking

[On singularity theorems and M-theory. They may not] help feed anyone or get their wash whiter. But men and women do not live by bread alone. We all need to understand where we come from and these observations show us a glimpse of our origin.
Stephen Hawking

Our search for understanding will never come to an end, and that we will always have the challenge of new discovery. Without it, we would stagnate.
Stephen Hawking

[On studying physics at University] Ridiculously easy. One could get through without going to any lectures, just by going to one or two tutorials a week. You didn’t need to remember many facts, just a few equations.
Stephen Hawking



[On particle physics it] seemed like botany. There were all these particles, but not theory.
Stephen Hawking

[On only doing the equivalent of an hour’s work per day at University] I’m not proud of that. I’m just describing the attitude at the time, which I shared with fellow students…
Stephen Hawking

[On his results being marked] If I get a first, I shall go to Cambridge. If I receive a second, I will remain at Oxford. So I expect that you will give me a first.
Stephen Hawking

[On his final year at Oxford] I seemed to be getting more clumsy, and I fell over once or twice for no apparent reason.
Stephen Hawking

[On Cosmology and Einstein’s general theory of relativity he found to be] neglected fields that were ripe for development at that time. Unlike elementary particles, there was a well-defined theory… thought to be impossibly difficult. People were so pleased to find any solution to the field equations, they didn’t ask what physical significance, if any, it had.
Stephen Hawking

[To] know the mind of God.
Stephen Hawking

[On God playing dice with the universe] God not only plays dice, but sometimes he throws them where they cannot be seen.
Stephen Hawking

Reports in magazine articles that I drank heavily are an exaggeration. I felt somewhat of a tragic character. I took to listening to Wagner.
Stephen Hawking

My dreams at the time were rather disturbed. Before my condition had been diagnosed, I had been very bored with life. There had not seemed to be anything worth doing. But shortly after I came out of hospital, I dreamt that I was going to be executed. I suddenly realized that there were a lot of worthwhile things I could do, if I were reprieved. Another dream that I had several times was that I would sacrifice my life to save others. After all, if I were going to die anyway, it might as well do some good.
Stephen Hawking

I didn’t die. In fact, although there was a cloud hanging over my future, I found to my surprise that I was enjoying life in the present more than before.
Stephen Hawking



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