Stephen Hawking Quotes

Initially, I studied philosophy, because it claimed to give you answers to the meaning of existence, but it didn't: It was basically a semantics game.

The most interesting thing in the world is another human being who wonders, suffers and raises the questions that have bothered him to the last day of his life, knowing he will never get the answers.

I grew up in a small industrial suburb of Haifa in Israel. As far back as I remember, I was interested in big questions. Who are we? What are we doing here? But the chances to discuss philosophy were quite thin on the ground.

Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.

Challenging the meaning of life is the truest expression of the state of being human.

I can get very philosophical and ask the questions Keats was asking as a young guy. What are we here for? What's a soul? What's it all about? What is thinking about, imagination?

I think Poe had a mission to tell us what it's all about. To answer some of the great questions of life.

Man - a being in search of meaning.

The two basic topics which fascinate me are 'What is reality?' and 'What constitutes the authentic human being?'

I'm a Nietzschean scholar. I've read an immense amount about nihilism and existentialism.

Every kid goes to school full of questions about meaning. You know, 'What's my place in the universe? What does it mean to be a human being? What are human beings?' Existing courses cannot help you answer those questions. They can't even help you ask them.

I really believe that 'Saw' makes us stop and think and question our motives and what we're doing here on Earth.

From my undergraduate days, I've always been interested in the major philosophical questions that don't seem to have an answer that everyone agrees on.

It is good a philosopher should remind himself, now and then, that he is a particle pontificating on infinity.

The greatest writers of this age... are aware of the mystery of our existence.

If I had to summarize, most broadly, my concerns as a writer, I'd say the question 'How then must we live?' is at the heart of it, for me.

To be human is to keep rattling the bars of the cage of existence, hollering, 'What's it for?'

Philosophy is an attempt by man to find cause and effect. Religion has the same goal.

Philosophy, most broadly viewed, is the critical survey of existence from the standpoint of value.

I like films that deal with some of those questions that you can never answer: 'Why are we here? What's it about? What happens to us with the choices that we make? What are the ramifications for doing something right, or doing something wrong?' Those universal questions, I enjoy.

I first started asking big questions when I was 12, and by big questions, I mean, 'Why are we here? What is this business? We're alive for a few short decades and then poof, we're out of here.'

Any art worthy of its name should address 'life', 'man', 'nature', 'death' and 'tragedy'.

I also like to look at the dynamic that takes place between religion and science because, in a way, both are asking the same questions: Who are we? Where do we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going? The methodologies are diametrically opposed, but their motivation is the same; the wellspring is the same in both cases.

Without knowing what I am and why I am here, life is impossible.

Philosophy begins in wonder. And, at the end, when philosophic thought has done its best, the wonder remains.