Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) was a renowned British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author known for his groundbreaking work on black holes, cosmology, and the nature of the universe. Despite being diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) at the age of 21, which gradually paralyzed him, Hawking made significant contributions to theoretical physics, particularly in the study of black holes and the origin of the universe. His book “A Brief History of Time” (1988) brought complex scientific concepts to a broader audience and became an international bestseller. Hawking’s research on black holes and the theoretical prediction of Hawking radiation revolutionized our understanding of these celestial objects. He remains one of the most influential scientists of the 20th and 21st centuries, inspiring generations with his intellect, perseverance, and scientific insights.
Stephen Hawking Quotes
1. “Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change. ”
— Stephen Hawking
2. “Quiet people have the loudest minds.”
— Stephen Hawking
3. “The universe doesn’t allow perfection.”
— Stephen Hawking
4. “Nothing is better than reading and gaining more and more knowledge.”
— Stephen Hawking
5. “However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.”
— Stephen Hawking
6. “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
7. “While there is life, there is hope.”
— Stephen Hawking
8. “I have noticed that even those who assert that everything is predestined and that we can change nothing about it still look both ways before they cross the street.”
— Stephen Hawking
9. “If time travel is possible, where are the tourists from the future?”
— Stephen Hawking
10. “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
11. “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
12. “Look up at the stars, not down at your feet.”
— Stephen Hawking
13. “People who boast about their I.Q. are losers.”
— Stephen Hawking
14. “I don’t fear God – I fear His believers.”
— Stephen Hawking
15. “When the going gets tough, the tough take a coffee break.”
— Stephen Hawking
16. “We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet.”
— Stephen Hawking
17. “I don’t think the human race will survive the next thousand years, unless we spread into space.”
— Stephen Hawking
18. “There should be no boundaries to human endeavor. However bad life may seem, there is always hope.”
— Stephen Hawking
19. “To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit.”
— Stephen Hawking
20. “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
21. “Its a crazy world out there. Be curious.”
— Stephen Hawking
22. “The beatings will continue until morale improves.”
— Stephen Hawking
23. “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.”
— Stephen Hawking
24. “Real science can be far stranger than science fiction and much more satisfying.”
— Stephen Hawking
25. “Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it.”
— Stephen Hawking
26. “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
27. “The past, like the future, is indefinite and exists only as a spectrum of possibilities.”
— Stephen Hawking
28. “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
29. “To understand recursion, one must first understand recursion.”
— Stephen Hawking
30. “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
31. “In my mind, I am free.”
— Stephen Hawking
32. “I have so much that I want to do. I hate wasting time.”
— Stephen Hawking
33. “The thing about smart people is that they seem like crazy people to dumb people.”
— Stephen Hawking
34. “You cannot predict the future.”
— Stephen Hawking
35. “Success is a relative term. It brings so many relatives.”
— Stephen Hawking
36. “We are all now connected by the Internet, like neurons in a giant brain.”
— Stephen Hawking
37. “Life would be tragic if it weren’t funny.”
— Stephen Hawking
38. “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.”
— Stephen Hawking
39. “Succeed in spite of management.”
— Stephen Hawking
40. “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
41. “If you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don’t throw it away.”
— Stephen Hawking
42. “No one undertakes research in physics with the intention of winning a prize. It is the joy of discovering something no one knew before.”
— Stephen Hawking
43. “Nothing is fool-proof to a sufficiently talented fool.”
— Stephen Hawking
44. “Whether you want to uncover the secrets of the universe, or you just want to pursue a career in the 21st century, basic computer programming is an essential skill to learn.”
— Stephen Hawking
45. “The lesson of the book is that the universe is governed by the laws of science.”
— Stephen Hawking
46. “I want to know why the universe exists, why there is something greater than nothing.”
— Stephen Hawking
47. “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.”
— Stephen Hawking
48. “Perhaps we could write code to optimize code, then run that code through the code optimizer?”
— Stephen Hawking
49. “Why do we remember the past, but not the future?”
— Stephen Hawking
50. “There is no unique picture of reality.”
— Stephen Hawking
51. “Only time – whatever that may be – will tell.”
— Stephen Hawking
52. “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.”
— Stephen Hawking
53. “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
54. “Although I cannot move and I have to speak through a computer, in my mind I am free.”
— Stephen Hawking
55. “The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.”
— Stephen Hawking
56. “Hang in there, retirement is only thirty years away!”
— Stephen Hawking
57. “I’m really easy to get along with once you see it my way.”
— Stephen Hawking
58. “Science can explain the universe without the need for a Creator.”
— Stephen Hawking
59. “The victim should have the right to end his life, if he wants. But I think it would be a great mistake. However bad life may seem, there is always something you can do, and succeed at. While there’s life, there is hope.”
— Stephen Hawking
60. “We should seek the greatest value of our action.”
— Stephen Hawking
61. “There is no heaven or afterlife for broken-down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.”
— Stephen Hawking
62. “What is important is that we have the ability to create.”
— Stephen Hawking
63. “You cannot understand the glories of the universe without believing there is some Supreme Power behind it.”
— Stephen Hawking
64. “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.”
— Stephen Hawking
65. “Jesus loves you, but everyone else thinks you’re an ass.”
— Stephen Hawking
66. “Thirty years ago I was diagnosed with motor neurone disease, and given two and a half years to live. I have always wondered how they could be so precise about the half.”
— Stephen Hawking
67. “One cannot really argue with a mathematical theorem.”
— Stephen Hawking
68. “We each exist for but a short time, and in that time explore but a small part of the whole universe.”
— Stephen Hawking
69. “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
70. “When something is made idiot proof, they will just make better idiots.”
— Stephen Hawking
71. “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
72. “If I have questions about the universe on my mind when I go to bed, I can’t turn off. I dream equations all night.”
— Stephen Hawking
73. “The Universe in a Nutshell.”
— Stephen Hawking
74. “We find ourselves in a bewildering world. We want to make sense of what we see around us and to ask: What is the nature of the universe? What is our place in it and where did it and we come from? Why is it the way it is?”
— Stephen Hawking
75. “The idea of 10 dimensions might sound exciting, but they would cause real problems if you forget where you parked your car.”
— Stephen Hawking
76. “Mankind’s greatest achievements have come about by talking and its greatest failures by not talking. It doesn’t have to be like this.”
— Stephen Hawking
77. “I would like nuclear fusion to become a practical power source. It would provide an inexhaustible supply of energy, without pollution or global warming.”
— Stephen Hawking
78. “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.”
— Stephen Hawking
79. “I don’t think the human race will survive the next thousand years, unless we spread into space. There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet. But I’m an optimist. We will reach out to the stars.”
— Stephen Hawking
80. “Observations indicate that the universe is expanding at an ever increasing rate. It will expand forever, getting emptier and darker.”
— Stephen Hawking
81. “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
82. “If I had to choose a superhero to be, I would pick Superman. He’s everything that I’m not.”
— Stephen Hawking
83. “A zero-gravity flight is a first step toward space travel.”
— Stephen Hawking
84. “Love the neighbor. But don’t get caught.”
— Stephen Hawking
85. “So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?”
— Stephen Hawking
86. “To boldly go where no one has gone before.”
— Stephen Hawking
87. “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.”
— Stephen Hawking
88. “Philosophers have not kept up with modern developments in science. Particularly physics.”
— Stephen Hawking
89. “There is a real danger that computers will develop intelligence and take over.”
— Stephen Hawking
90. “As a child, I wanted to know how things worked and to control them. With a friend, I built a number of complicated models that I could control. It was a natural next step to want to know how the universe works.”
— Stephen Hawking
91. “I don’t believe that the ultimate theory will come by steady work along existing lines. We need something new. We can’t predict what that will be or when we will find it because if we knew that, we would have found it already!”
— Stephen Hawking
92. “Disability need not be an obstacle to success.”
— Stephen Hawking
93. “We think we have solved the mystery of creation. Maybe we should patent the universe and charge everyone royalties for their existence.”
— Stephen Hawking
94. “Sometimes I wonder if I’m as famous for my wheelchair and disabilities as I am for my discoveries.”
— Stephen Hawking
95. “Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis: you can never prove it.”
— Stephen Hawking
96. “I believe in universal health care. And I am not afraid to say so.”
— Stephen Hawking
97. “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.”
— Stephen Hawking
98. “The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?”
— Stephen Hawking
99. “We won’t know for a few years.”
— Stephen Hawking
100. “The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like.”
— Stephen Hawking
101. “But a machine that was powerful enough to accelerate particles to the grand unification energy would have to be as big as the Solar System – and would be unlikely to be funded in the present economic climate.”
— Stephen Hawking
102. “The doctor who diagnosed me with ALS, or motor neuron disease, told me that it would kill me in two or three years.”
— Stephen Hawking
103. “Science is beautiful when it makes simple explanations of phenomena or connections between different observations.”
— Stephen Hawking
104. “The concern here is that financial services become a kind of tech-led Wild West.”
— Stephen Hawking
105. “People won’t have time for you if you are always angry or complaining.”
— Stephen Hawking
106. “I think the next century will be the century of complexity.”
— Stephen Hawking
107. “Without imperfection, you or I would not exist.”
— Stephen Hawking
108. “Doing a job RIGHT the first time gets the job done. Doing the job WRONG fourteen times gives you job security.”
— Stephen Hawking
109. “We are very, very small, but we are profoundly capable of very, very big things.”
— Stephen Hawking
110. “It matters if you don’t just give up.”
— Stephen Hawking
111. “What was God doing before the divine creation? Was he preparing hell for people who asked such questions?”
— Stephen Hawking
112. “Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing.”
— Stephen Hawking
113. “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.”
— Stephen Hawking
114. “In fact, if one considers the possible constants and laws that could have emerged, the odds against a universe that produced life like ours are immense.”
— Stephen Hawking
115. “Science is not only a disciple of reason but, also, one of romance and passion.”
— Stephen Hawking
116. “Time travel may be possible, but it is not practical.”
— Stephen Hawking
117. “My expectations were reduced to zero when I was 21. Everything since then has been a bonus.”
— Stephen Hawking
118. “The increase of disorder or entropy is what distinguishes the past from the future, giving a direction to time.”
— Stephen Hawking
119. “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.”
— Stephen Hawking
120. “The fact that no one understands you doesn’t mean you’re an artist.”
— Stephen Hawking
121. “In a world that is in chaos politically, socially and environmentally, how can the human race sustain another 100 years?”
— Stephen Hawking
122. “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.”
— Stephen Hawking
123. “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.”
— Stephen Hawking
124. “Although quantum mechanics has been around for nearly 70 years, it is still not generally understood or appreciated, even by those that use it to do calculations.”
— Stephen Hawking
125. “The wise never marry, and when they marry they become otherwise.”
— Stephen Hawking
126. “Plagiarism saves time.”
— Stephen Hawking
127. “I have sold more books on physics than Madonna has on sex.”
— Stephen Hawking
128. “Women. They are a complete mystery.”
— Stephen Hawking
129. “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.”
— Stephen Hawking
130. “I believe things cannot make themselves impossible.”
— Stephen Hawking
131. “Science makes god unnecessary.”
— Stephen Hawking
132. “I like physics, but I love cartoons.”
— Stephen Hawking
133. “Nothing cannot exist forever.”
— Stephen Hawking
134. “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
135. “The moment you understand the whole Universe, is the moment you slightly begin to understand the way God’s mind works.”
— Stephen Hawking
136. “In real time, the universe has a beginning and an end at singularities that form a boundary to space-time and at which the laws of science break down.”
— Stephen Hawking
137. “There should be a better way to start a day than waking up every morning.”
— Stephen Hawking
138. “The boundary condition of the universe is that it has no boundary.”
— Stephen Hawking
139. “I do not believe in a personal God.”
— Stephen Hawking
140. “One could imagine such technology outsmarting financial markets, out-inventing human researchers, out-manipulating human leaders, and developing weapons we cannot even understand.”
— Stephen Hawking
141. “Scientific discovery may not be better than sex, but the satisfaction lasts longer.”
— Stephen Hawking
142. “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 partner with whom to reproduce, but now it threatens to destroy us all.”
— Stephen Hawking
143. “My first popular book, ‘A Brief History of Time,’ aroused a great deal of interest, but many found it difficult to understand.”
— Stephen Hawking
144. “Equations are just the boring part of mathematics. I attempt to see things in terms of geometry.”
— Stephen Hawking
145. “Never put off the work till tomorrow what you can put off today.”
— Stephen Hawking
146. “I’d say I don’t believe in God, but I’m afraid He might hear me.”
— Stephen Hawking
147. “Why are we here? Where do we come from? Traditionally, these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead.”
— Stephen Hawking
148. “If at first you don’t succeed, try management.”
— Stephen Hawking
149. “There ought to be something very special about the boundary conditions of the universe and what can be more special than that there is no boundary?”
— Stephen Hawking
150. “I’m here to chew gum and kick some ass, and I’m all out of gum.”
— Stephen Hawking
151. “Physics as we know it will be over in six months – Max Born.”
— Stephen Hawking
152. “We don’t let animals suffer, so why humans?”
— Stephen Hawking
153. “I am damned if I’m going to die before I have unraveled more of the universe.”
— Stephen Hawking
154. “It is said that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. But the universe is the ultimate free lunch.”
— Stephen Hawking
155. “I think the universe was spontaneously created out of nothing, according to the laws of science. It has no beginning and no end.”
— Stephen Hawking
156. “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.”
— Stephen Hawking
157. “It is very important for young people keep their sense of wonder and keep asking why.”
— Stephen Hawking
158. “Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge.”
— Stephen Hawking
159. “God abhors a naked singularity.”
— Stephen Hawking
160. “Of course it is possible that UFO’s really do contain aliens as many people believe, and the government is hushing it up.”
— Stephen Hawking
161. “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.”
— Stephen Hawking
162. “Every man should marry. After all, happiness is not the only thing in life.”
— Stephen Hawking
163. “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
164. “If human life were long enough to find the ultimate theory, everything would have been solved by previous generations. Nothing would be left to be discovered.”
— Stephen Hawking
165. “Do you believe in first love – or should I pass by again?”
— Stephen Hawking
166. “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
167. “If the total energy of the universe must always remain zero, and it costs energy to create a body, how can a whole universe be created from nothing?”
— Stephen Hawking
168. “Go the extra mile. It makes your boss look like an incompetent slacker.”
— Stephen Hawking
169. “If you understand how the universe operates, you control it in a way.”
— Stephen Hawking
170. “Our only chance of long-term survival is not to remain lurking on planet Earth, but to spread out into space.”
— Stephen Hawking
171. “God not only plays dice, he throws them in the corner where you can’t see them.”
— Stephen Hawking
172. “I want to encourage public interest in space. I have never let my condition stop me. You only live once.”
— Stephen Hawking
173. “Eternity is a long time, especially towards the end.”
— Stephen Hawking
174. “There are no black holes – in the sense of regimes from which light can’t escape to infinity. There are however apparent horizons which persist for a period of time.”
— Stephen Hawking
175. “Exploration by real people inspires us.”
— Stephen Hawking
176. “Latest survey shows that 3 out of 4 people make up 75% of the world’s population.”
— Stephen Hawking
177. “The meaning in life is not out there but in between our ears. In many ways this makes us the lords of creation.”
— Stephen Hawking
178. “Chaos, when left alone, tends to multiply.”
— Stephen Hawking
179. “Many people do not like the idea that time has a beginning, probably because it smacks of divine intervention.”
— Stephen Hawking
180. “We waste time, so you don’t have to.”
— Stephen Hawking
181. “Keeping an active mind has been vital to my survival, as has been maintaining a sense of humor.”
— Stephen Hawking
182. “Many people find the universe confusing – it’s not.”
— Stephen Hawking
183. “One can’t predict the weather more than a few days in advance.”
— Stephen Hawking
184. “I want my books sold on airport bookstalls.”
— Stephen Hawking
185. “The human race does not have a very good record of intelligent behavior.”
— Stephen Hawking
186. “Science does not deny religion, it just offers a simpler alternative.”
— Stephen Hawking
187. “I wouldn’t be here today if it were not for the NHS, I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived.”
— Stephen Hawking
188. “I think the human race has no future if it doesn’t go into space.”
— Stephen Hawking
189. “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
190. “Don’t be disabled in spirit as well as physically.”
— Stephen Hawking
191. “Simplicity is a matter of taste.”
— Stephen Hawking
192. “It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in just this way, except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us.”
— Stephen Hawking
193. “I think those who have a terminal illness and are in great pain should have the right to choose to end their own life, and those that help them should be free from prosecution.”
— Stephen Hawking
194. “One should love animals. They are so tasty.”
— Stephen Hawking
195. “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
196. “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
197. “The human race shouldn’t have all its eggs in one basket, or on one planet. Let’s hope we can avoid dropping the basket until we have spread the load.”
— Stephen Hawking
198. “Before we understand science, it is natural to believe that God created the universe. But now science offers a more convincing explanation.”
— Stephen Hawking
199. “There is nothing bigger or older than the universe.”
— Stephen Hawking
200. “Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?”
— Stephen Hawking
