These famous Stephen Hawking quotes will fill you up with inspiration.
Stephen William Hawking was born on 8 January 1942 at Oxford University’s Horton Hospital in Oxford, England. He belonged to a highly intelligent and somewhat eccentric family. His father wanted him to attend the well-regarded Westminster School but could not afford the school fees without the financial aid of a scholarship, so he remained there.
Hawking was not successful academically in the starting but with time and his interest in physics and chemistry, he developed at a faster rate than most children do and was allowed to skip a few grades.
He was diagnosed with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) a form of motor neuron disease at 21 and was told he would only live for two more years. But he defied all odds and lived until 76 overcoming debilitating illness and producing some of the most groundbreaking scientific theories in the last decades.
Hawking was an internationally acclaimed physicist, cosmologist, and author and his main goal were to understand the workings of this universe and he did everything he could to achieve that goal.
Stephen Hawking died on March 14th, 2018, his words and sentiments are still fresh in our minds. He was considered as an inspiration by many including Bill Gates. It is time to acknowledge the work of this genius who has left us with so much to learn from.
Here we are sharing a collection of Stephen Hawking’s famous quotes about life, love, time, and space to motivate and inspire you to find out the truth about this universe.
Stephen Hawking Quotes
“Quiet people have the loudest minds.”
― Stephen Hawking
“Life would be tragic if it weren’t funny.”
― Stephen Hawking
“Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change. ”
― Stephen Hawking
“However bad life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. Where there’s life, there’s hope.”
― Stephen Hawking
“One is always a long way from solving a problem until one actually has the answer.”
― Stephen W. Hawking
“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 W. Hawking, Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays
“It is not clear that intelligence has any long-term survival value.”
― Stephen Hawking
“Be brave, be curious, be determined, overcome the odds. It can be done”
― Stephen Hawking, Brief Answers to the Big Questions
“Government works best under the glare of public scrutiny. Absent such scrutiny, abuses occur.”
― Stephen Hawking
“Eternity is a long time, especially towards the end.”
― Stephen Hawking
Stephen Hawking Famous Quotes About Life
“Simplicity is a matter of taste”
― Stephen Hawking, The Grand Design
“It matters if you just don’t give up.”
― Stephen Hawking
“Women. They are a complete mystery to me.”
― Stephen Hawking
“While there’s life, there is hope.”
― Stephen Hawking, Brief Answers to the Big Questions
“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
“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
“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.”
― Stephen W. Hawking
“Only time(whatever that may be) will tell.”
― Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“The idea of 10 dimensions might sound exciting, but they would cause real problems if you forget where you parked your car.”
― Stephen Hawking, The Grand Design
“The human capacity for guilt is such that people can always find ways to blame themselves”
― Stephen Hawking, The Grand Design
Stephen Hawking Motivational And Inspirational Quotes
“I like physics, but I love cartoons.”
― Stephen Hawking
“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
“People won’t have time for you if you are always angry or complaining.”
― Stephen Hawking
“If one is physically disabled, one cannot afford to be *psychologically* disabled as well.”
― Stephen Hawking
“When we see the Earth from space, we see ourselves as a whole. We see the unity, and not the divisions. It is such a simple image with a compelling message; one planet, one human race.”
― Stephen Hawking, Brief Answers to the Big Questions
“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? 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, A Brief History of Time
“God abhors a naked singularity.”
― Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“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. Speech has allowed the communication of ideas, enabling human beings to work together to build the impossible. Mankind’s greatest achievements have come about by talking, and its greatest failures by not talking. It doesn’t have to be like this. Our greatest hopes could become reality in the future. With the technology at our disposal, the possibilities are unbounded. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.”
― Stephen Hawking
“Remember to 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. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.
It matters that you don’t just give up.”
― Stephen Hawking
“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 W. Hawking
Stephen Hawking A Brief History Of Time Quotes
“Today will still yearn to know why we are here and where we came from. Humanity’s deepest desire for knowledge is justification enough for our continuing quest. And our goal is nothing less than a complete description of the universe we live in.”
― Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“The increase of disorder or entropy is what distinguishes the past from the future, giving a direction to time.”
― Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“What did God do before he created the universe?”
― Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“The universe doesn’t allow perfection.”
― Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis: you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory.”
― Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“If time travel is possible, where are the tourists from the future?”
― Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“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, A Brief History of Time
“Ever since the dawn of civilization, people have not been content to see events as unconnected and inexplicable. They have craved an understanding of the underlying order in the world. Today we still yearn to know why we are here and where we came from. Humanity’s deepest desire for knowledge is justification enough for our continuing quest. And our goal is nothing less than a complete description of the universe we live in.”
― Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“As we shall see, the concept of time has no meaning before the beginning of the universe. This was first pointed out by St. Augustine. When asked: “What did God do before he created the universe?” Augustine didn’t reply: “He was preparing Hell for people who asked such questions.”
― Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“A theory is a good theory if it satisfies two requirements. It must accurately describe a large class of observations on the basis of a model that contains only a few arbitrary elements, and it must make definite predictions about the results of future observations.”
― Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
Stephen Hawking Funny Quotes, Sayings, And Phrases
“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
“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, Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays
“I believe 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 that there probably is 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.”
― Stephen Hawking
“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”
― Stephen Hawking
“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
“The human race does not have a very good record of intelligent behaviour.”
― Stephen Hawking, Brief Answers to the Big Questions
“ You cannot understand the glories of the universe without believing there is some Supreme Power behind it.”
― Stephen Hawking
“There should be no boundaries to human endeavor. We are all different. However bad life may seem, there is always something you can do, and succeed at. While there’s life, there is hope.”
― Stephen Hawking
“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.”
― Stephen Hawking
“[In the Universe it may be that] Primitive life is very common and intelligent life is fairly rare. Some would say it has yet to occur on Earth.”
― Stephen W. Hawking
Stephen Hawking Best Quotes About Love
“Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. If you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don’t throw it away.”
― Stephen Hawking
“Let us fight for every woman and every man to have the opportunity to live healthy, secure lives, full of opportunity and love. We are all time travellers, journeying together into the future. But let us work together to make that future a place we want to visit.”
― Stephen Hawking, Brief Answers to the Big Questions
“We each exist for but a short time, and in that time explore but a small part of the whole universe”
― 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
“thus, in a sense, we are all doomed. even if we stay away from black holes”
― Stephen W. Hawking
“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.”
― Stephen Hawking
“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
“The role played by time at the beginning of the universe is, I believe, the final key to removing the need for a Grand Designer, and revealing how the universe created itself. … Time itself must come to a stop. You can’t get to a time before the big bang, because there was no time before the big bang. We have finally found something that does not have a cause because there was no time for a cause to exist in. For me this means there is no possibility of a creator because there is no time for a creator to have existed. Since time itself began at the moment of the Big Bang, it was an event that could not have been caused or created by anyone or anything. … So when people ask me if a god created the universe, I tell them 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 does not have an edge, so looking for it is a futile exercise.”
― Stephen W. Hawking
“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
“When people ask me if a 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 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 each free to believe what we want, and it’s my view that the simplest explanation is; there is no god. No one created our 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.”
― Stephen Hawking
Stephen Hawking Quotes About God
“Not only does God play dice but… he sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen.”
― Stephen Hawking
“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
“People want answers to the big questions, like why we are here. They don’t expect the answers to be easy, so they are prepared to struggle a bit. When people ask me if a 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 that doesn’t have an edge, so looking for it is a futile exercise.
Do I have faith? We are each free to believe what we want, and it’s my view that the simplest explanation is that there is no God. No one created the universe and no one directs our fate. This leads me to a profound realisation: there is probably no heaven and afterlife either. I think belief in an afterlife is just wishful thinking. There is no reliable evidence for it, and it flies in the face of everything we know in science. I think that when we die we return to dust. But there’s a sense in which we live on, in our influence, and in our genes that we pass on to our children. We have this one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe, and for that I am extremely grateful.”
― Stephen Hawking, Brief Answers to the Big Questions
“Einstein never accepted that the universe was governed by chance; his feelings were summed up in his famous statement “God does not play dice.”
― Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“Not to take this web of dualities as a sign we are on the right track would be a bit like believing that God put fossils into the rocks in order to mislead Darwin about the evolution of life.”
― Stephen Hawking
“Although I cannot move and I have to speak through a computer, in my mind I am free.”
― Stephen Hawking
“People who boast about their I.Q. are losers.”
― Stephen Hawking
“The thing about smart people is that they seem like crazy people to dumb people.”
― Stephen Hawking
“I’m not afraid of death, but I’m in no hurry to die.”
― Stephen W. Hawking
“The downside of my celebrity is that I cannot go anywhere in the world without being recognized. It is not enough for me to wear dark sunglasses and a wig. The wheelchair gives me away.”
― Stephen Hawking
Stephen Hawking Quotes About Time, Universe And Space
“I don’t think the human race will survive the next thousand years, unless we spread into space.”
― Stephen Hawking
“Many people do not like the idea that time has a beginning, probably because it smacks of divine intervention. (The Catholic Church, on the other hand, seized on the big bang model and in 1951 officially pronounced it to be in accordance with the Bible.”
― Stephen Hawking
“A million million million million (1 with twenty-four zeros after it) miles, the size of the observable universe.”
― Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“No matter how powerful a computer you have, if you put lousy data in you will get lousy predictions out.”
― Stephen Hawking, Brief Answers to the Big Questions
“As those who have seen Jurassic Park will know, this means a tiny disturbance in one place, can cause a major change in another. A butterfly flapping its wings can cause rain in Central Park, New York. The trouble is, it is not repeatable. The next time the butterfly flaps its wings, a host of other things will be different, which will also influence the weather. That is why weather forecasts are so unreliable.”
― Stephen Hawking
“There is no way that we can predict the weather six months ahead beyond giving the seasonal average”
― Stephen Hawking, Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays
“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, A Briefer History of Time
“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
“I regard the afterlife to be a fairy story for people that are afraid of the dark”
― Stephen Hawking
“What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.”
― Stephen W. Hawking, A Briefer History of Time
Stephen Hawking Disability Quotes
“If you are disabled, it is probably not your fault, but it is no good blaming the world or expecting it to take pity on you. One has to have a positive attitude and must make the best of the situation that one finds oneself in; if one is physically disabled, one cannot afford to be psychologically disabled as well. In my opinion, one should concentrate on activities in which one’s physical disability will not present a serious handicap. I am afraid that Olympic Games for the disabled do not appeal to me, but it is easy for me to say that because I never liked athletics anyway. On the other hand, science is a very good area for disabled people because it goes on mainly in the mind. Of course, most kinds of experimental work are probably ruled out for most such people, but theoretical work is almost ideal. My disabilities have not been a significant handicap in my field, which is theoretical physics. Indeed, they have helped me in a way by shielding me from lecturing and administrative work that I would otherwise have been involved in. I have managed, however, only because of the large amount of help I have received from my wife, children, colleagues and students. I find that people in general are very ready to help, but you should encourage them to feel that their efforts to aid you are worthwhile by doing as well as you possibly can.”
― Stephen Hawking
“I have spent my life travelling across the universe, inside my mind.”
― Stephen Hawking, Brief Answers to the Big Questions
“Nothing is better than reading and gaining more and more knowledge.”
― Stephen Hawking
“To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit.”
― Stephen Hawking
“We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet,”
― Stephen Hawking
“You cannot predict the future.”
― Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“The rate of progress is so rapid that what one learns at school or university is always a bit out of date. Only a few people can keep up with the rapidly advancing frontier of knowledge, and they have to devote their whole time to it and specialize in a small area. The rest of the population has little idea of the advances that are being made
or the excitement they are generating.”
― Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“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.”
― Stephen Hawking
“One could say: “The boundary condition of the universe is that it has no boundary.” The universe would be completely self-contained and not affected by anything outside itself. It would neither be created nor destroyed. It would just BE.”
― Stephen W. Hawking
“The universe does not behave according to our pre-conceived ideas. It continues to surprise us.”
― Stephen Hawking
Stephen Hawking Intelligence Quotes
“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, A Brief History of Time
“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
“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
“If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.”
― Stephen Hawking
“If there really is a complete unified theory that governs everything, it presumably also determines your actions. But it does so in a way that is impossible to calculate for an organism that is as complicated as a human being. The reason we say that humans have free will is because we can’t predict what they will do.”
― Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“IF you remember every word in this book, your memory will have recorded about two million pieces of information: the order in your brain will have increased by about two million units. However, while you have been reading the book, you will have converted at least a thousand calories of ordered energy, in the form of food, into disordered energy, in the form of heat that you lose to the air around you by convection and sweat. This will increase the disorder of the universe by about twenty million million million million units – or about ten million million million times the increase in order in your brain – and that’s if you remember everything in this book.”
― Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“So remember to 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. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. It matters that you don’t just give up. Unleash your imagination. Shape the future.”
― Stephen Hawking, Brief Answers to the Big Questions
“In his eyes shone the reflection of the most beautiful planet in the Universe—a planet that is not too hot and not too cold; that has liquid water on the surface and where the gravity is just right for human beings and the atmosphere is perfect for them to breathe; where there are mountains and deserts and oceans and islands and forests and trees and birds and plants and animals and insects and people—lots and lots of people. Where there is life. Some of it, possibly, intelligent.”
― Stephen Hawking, George’s Cosmic Treasure Hunt
“I am very aware of the preciousness of time. Seize the moment. Act now.”
― Stephen Hawking, Brief Answers to the Big Questions
“We believe human begins have existed for only a small fraction of cosmic history because the human race has been improving so rapidly in knowledge and technology that if people had been around for millions of years, the human race would be much further along in its mastery.”
― Stephen Hawking, The Grand Design
Did you get inspired by Stephen Hawking quotes?
Stephen Hawking is one of the most recognizable and admired scientists in the world. He has achieved a level of celebrity that few scientists get to enjoy. He was an exceptionally intelligent and kind man.
Hawking is a great example of never giving up no matter whatever life throws at you. He not only helped the world with his theories, but he also inspired people to not only look up at the stars but to reach for them, too.
We hope you will get inspired and motivated by these Stephen Hawking famous quotes about life, love, time, and space and learn many other things from his never give up attitude.
Do share your thoughts with us in the comment section and tell us which one was your favorite from all of the Stephen Hawking quotes or if you want to ask any questions or have any queries send them via Contact Us
If you can connect with Stephen Hawking quotes, subscribe to our blog so that you don’t miss a single post. Get future posts by email, or you can follow us on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook. It’s totally FREE.
Read More….