Skip to content

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 (1988)

Another quote →

Topics

Science

More quotes by Stephen Hawking

Although September 11 was horrible, it didn't threaten the survival of the human race, like nuclear weapons do.

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.

A Brief History of Time (1988)

I still believe there are grounds for cautious optimism that we may now be near the end of the search for the ultimate laws of nature.

A Brief History of Time (1988)

Disorder increases with time because we measure time in the direction in which disorder increases.

A Brief History of Time (1988)

In a world that is in chaos politically, socially and environmentally, how can the human race sustain another 100 years?

All Stephen Hawking quotes →

You may also like

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.

H. P. Lovecraft The Call of Cthulhu (1926)

All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom.

Albert Einstein Moral Decay (1937)

Science and religion are two human enterprises sharing many features.

Freeman Dyson Infinite in All Directions (1988)

To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.

Henri Poincaré Science and Hypothesis (1901)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Stephen Hawking (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.