Stephen Hawking Quotes

The first indication of a young person's growing smarter is that he no longer understands the things which he used to consider quite intelligible and self-evident.

Our brains are continuing to evolve, and perhaps a few tens of thousands of years from now, our descendants will walk around with five pound brains, allowing them insights that we can't imagine.

I agree that a love of reading is a great gift for a parent to pass on to his or her child.

When the conscious mind expands to embrace deeper levels of thinking, the thought wave becomes more powerful and results in added energy and intelligence.

Man, as we know him, is a poor creature; he is halfway between an ape and a god and he is travelling in the right direction.

The intellectual evolution of the race consists in an increase in the number, delicacy, complexity, permanence and speed of formation of such associations.

It is paradoxical, yet true, to say, that the more we know, the more ignorant we become in the absolute sense, for it is only through enlightenment that we become conscious of our limitations. Precisely one of the most gratifying results of intellectual evolution is the continuous opening up of new and greater prospects.

My personal theory is that younger audiences disdain books - not because those readers are dumber than past readers, but because today's reader is smarter.

Thus with every advance in our scientific knowledge new elements come up, often forcing us to recast our entire picture of physical reality. No doubt, theorists would much prefer to perfect and amend their theories rather than be obliged to scrap them continually. But this obligation is the condition and price of all scientific progress.

I would much rather be a perfected ape than a degraded Adam. Yes, if it is shown to me that my humble ancestors were quadrupedal animals, arboreal herbivores, brothers or cousins of those who were also the ancestors of monkeys and apes, far from blushing in shame for my species because of its genealogy and parentage, I will be proud of all that evolution has accomplished, of the continuous improvement which takes us up to the highest order, of the successive triumphs that have made us superior to all of the other species ... the splendid work of progress.

Why should we consider defining intelligence as something global and as something that hasn't actually yet appeared on Earth? It may be useful for envisioning the future of our own civilization and any others that may be out there among the stars. It might give us something to strive for.

Students often say things that they will one day change their minds about, but also things that change our minds when we think about them.

We've been merging with tools since the beginning of human evolution, and arguably, that's one of the things that makes us human beings.

I am interested in evolution within my thinking. I am not interested in the evolution of my paint.

The answer is pretty clear that your intelligence can actually be changed.

Kids aren't dumb - they might not get something, but they're going to figure it out.

I don't subscribe to the view that talent is deteriorating. I think every generation is brighter than their previous generation.

The mind reaches great heights only by spurts.

At some point, human intelligence became collective and cumulative in a way that happened to no other animal.

Cunning to wise, is as an Ape to a Man.

We can design things that learn, so you can grow an intelligence by creating an environment and creating things that just do it a million time faster than we do.

Learning can be a bridge between doing and thinking. But then there is a danger that the person who uses learning as a bridge between doing and thinking may get stuck in learning and never get on to thinking.

What transforms this world is - knowledge. Do you see what I mean? Nothing else can change anything in this world. Knowledge alone is capable of transforming the world, while at the same time leaving it exactly as it is. When you look at the world with knowledge, you realize that things are unchangeable and at the same time are constantly being transformed.

I grew up bilingual, I grew up speaking Chinese in the home, Mandarin Chinese with my parents, and I learned English because I was born and raised in the U.S. That really gave me an edge. I understand that, from the experts, if you grew up bilingual, your brain kind of gets wired to accept a new language. It was a very serious deal because not only did I have to learn Russian to a high degree in order to function as a necessary member of the crew, but also I knew that the Russians that came over that made an effort and had some success in learning English, those were the folks we trusted.

Two imbecile parents, whether related or not, have only imbecile offspring.