Quotes from Stephen Hawking

If you know how something works, you can control it.

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

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.

The twentieth century saw man's view of the universe transformed: we realized the insignificance of our planet in the vastness of the universe, and we discovered that time and space we curved and inseparable , that the universe was expanding, and that it had a beginning in time.

I have had a full and satisfying life. I believe that disabled people should concentrate on things that their handicap doesn't precent them from doing and not regret those they can't do.

There is a good chance that the study of the early universe and the requirements of mathematical consistency will lead us to a complete unified theory within the lifetime of some of us who are around today, always presuming we don't blow ourselves up first!

It has certainly been true in the past that what we call intelligence and scientific discovery have conveyed a survival advantage.

Dios no solo juega a los dados, a veces los tira donde no se pueden ver.

But what lies ahead for those who are young now? I can say with confidence that their future will depend more on science and technology than any previous generation's has done. They need to know about science more than any before them because it is part of their daily lives in an unprecedented way.

The creation accounts of the past now seem less relevant and credible.

global warming, finding space and resources for the massive increase in the Earth's human population, rapid extinction of other species, the need to develop renewable energy sources, the degradation of the oceans, deforestation and epidemic diseases—just to name a few.

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

After all, it is hard to think of a more important, or fundamental, mystery than what, or who, created and controls the universe.

We can define life as an ordered system that can keep itself going against the tendency to disorder and can reproduce itself.

The huge questions of existence still remain unanswered—how did life begin on Earth? What is consciousness? Is there anyone out there or are we alone in the universe? These are questions for the next generation to work on.

For example, a computer virus is a program that will make copies of itself in the memory of a computer, and will transfer itself to other computers. Thus it fits the definition of a living system that I have given. Like a biological virus, it is a rather degenerate form, because it contains only instructions or genes, and doesn't have any metabolism of its own. Instead, it reprograms the metabolism of the host computer, or cell.

There is no such thing as a standard, run-of-the-mill, human being.

A world where only a tiny super-elite are capable of understanding advanced science and technology and its applications would be, to my mind, a dangerous and limited one. I seriously doubt whether long-range beneficial projects such as cleaning up the oceans or curing diseases in the developing world would be given priority. Worse, we could find that technology is used against us and that we might have no power to stop it.

I think computer viruses should count as life.

When you are faced with the possibility of an early death, it makes you realize that life is worth living and that there are lots of things you want to do".

A world where only a tiny super-elite are capable of understanding advanced science and technology and its applications would be, to my mind, a dangerous and limited one.

the light that we see from distant galaxies left them millions of years ago, and in the case of the most distant object that we have seen, the light left some eight thousand million years ago. Thus, when we look at the universe, we are seeing it as it was in the past.

Opening up the thrill and wonder of scientific discovery, creating innovative and accessible ways to reach out to the widest young audience possible, greatly increases the chances of finding and inspiring the new Einstein. Wherever she might be.

This is easy. I would like to see the development of fusion power to give an unlimited supply of clean energy, and a switch to electric cars. Nuclear fusion would become a practical power source and would provide us with an inexhaustible supply of energy, without pollution or global warming.