Quote collection
421 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"For years, my early work with Roger Penrose seemed to be a disaster for science. It showed that the universe must have begun with a singularity, if Einstein's general theory of relativity is correct. That appeared to indicate that science could not predict how the universe would begin."
"At times, I get very lonely because people are afraid to talk to me or don't wait for me to write a response. I'm shy and tongue-tied at times. I find it difficult to talk to people who I don't know."
"The progress of the human race in understanding the universe has established a small corner of order in an increasingly disordered universe."
"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!"
"A million million million million (1 with twenty-four zeros after it) miles, the size of the observable universe."
"It is tribute to how far we have come in theoretical physics that it now takes enormous machines and a great deal of money to perform experiments whose results we can not predict."
"We explore because we are human and we want to know. I hope that Pluto will help us on that journey."
"If any one of about 40 physical qualities had more than slightly different values, life as we know it could not exist."
"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."
"We see the universe the way it is because we exist."
"I do not believe in a personal God."
"More often than politicians, but not as often as they should."
"Computer viruses are alive."
"[Question: Do you feel that scientists correct themselves as often as they should?] More often than politicians, but not as often as they should."
"You cannot predict the future."
"The human race does not have a very good record of intelligent behavior."
"Science could predict that the universe must have had a beginning."
"My first popular book, 'A Brief History of Time,' aroused a great deal of interest, but many found it difficult to understand."
"Computers double their performance every month."
"I want to know why the universe exists, why there is something greater than nothing."