Quotes from Stephen Hawking

We could call order by the name of God, but it would be an impersonal God. There's not much personal about the laws of physics.

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.

Is god omnipotent ? If he is, can he create a rock so heavy he can't lift it ?

The moment you understand the whole Universe, is the moment you slightly begin to understand the way God's mind works

I do not believe in a personal God.

Science makes God unnecessary.

God may exist, but science can explain the universe without the need for a creator.

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.

Before we understand science, it is natural to believe that God created the universe.

God is the name people give to the reason we are here. But I think that reason is the laws of physics rather than someone with whom one can have a personal relationship. An impersonal God.

The human race does not have a very good record of intelligent behavior.

I'm never any good in the morning. It is only after four in the afternoon that I get going.

As Irving Good realised in 1965, machines with superhuman intelligence could repeatedly improve their design even further, triggering what Vernor Vinge called a 'singularity.'

I think we have a good chance of surviving long enough to colonize the solar system.

Of course it is possible that UFO's really do contain aliens as many people believe, and the government is hushing it up

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.

We explore because we are human and we want to know. I hope that Pluto will help us on that journey.

Keeping an active mind has been vital to my survival, as has been maintaining a sense of humor.

Mankind's greatest achievements have come about by talking and its greatest failures by not talking. It doesn't have to be like this.

There should be no boundaries to human endeavor. (...) However bad life may seem (...) While there's life, there is hope.

I think it quite likely that we are the only civilization within several hundred light years; otherwise we would have heard radio waves.

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.

I don't have much positive to say about motor neuron disease, but it taught me not to pity myself because others were worse off, and to get on with what I still could do. I'm happier now than before I developed the condition.

I don't have much positive to say about motor neurone disease. But it taught me not to pity myself because others were worse off, and to get on with what I could still do.