We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet.
Stephen HawkingRead
Most sets of values would give rise to universes that, although they might be very beautiful, would contain no one able to wonder at that beauty.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the importance of consciousness and awareness in appreciating beauty in the universe.
Stephen Hawking's quote suggests that while there may be countless sets of physical laws and values that could result in beautiful worlds, without conscious beings to observe and appreciate that beauty, such worlds hold no intrinsic meaning. It emphasizes the significance of awareness and the role of observers in giving value to the universe and its wonders.
Themes
BeautyUniverseConsciousnessAppreciationWonder
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a speech about the significance of awareness in art appreciation.
More from Stephen Hawking
All quotes βI regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.
Stephen HawkingRead
It surprises me how disinterested we are today about things like physics, space, the universe and philosophy of our existence, our purpose, our final destination. Its a crazy world out there. Be curious.
Stephen HawkingRead
I was not a good student. I did not spend much time at college; I was too busy enjoying myself.
Stephen HawkingRead
The world has changed far more in the past 100 years than in any other century in history. The reason is not political or economic but technological-technologies that flowed directly from advances in basic science. Clearly, no scientist better represents those advances than Albert Einstein: TIME's Person of the Century.
Stephen HawkingRead
In my opinion, there is no aspect of reality beyond the reach of the human mind.
Stephen HawkingRead
Similar quotes
Books and drafts mean something quite different for different thinkers. One collects in a book the lights he was able to steal and carry home swiftly out of the rays of some insight that suddenly dawned on him, while another thinker offers us nothing but shadows - images in black and grey of what had built up in his soul the day before.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
By our uncritical pursuit of relevance we have actually courted irrelevance; by our breathless chase after relevance without a matching committment to faithfulness, we have become not only unfaithful, but irrelevant; by our determined efforts to redefine outselves in ways that are more compelling to the modern world than are faithful to Christ, we have lost not only our identity but our authority and our relevance. Our crying need is to be faithful as well as relevant
Os GuinnessRead
My day passes between logic, whistling, going for walks, and being depressed. I wish to God that I were more intelligent and everything would finally become clear to me - or else that I needn't live much longer.
Ludwig WittgensteinRead
PARDON, v. To remit a penalty and restore to the life of crime. To add to the lure of crime the temptation of ingratitude.
Ambrose BierceRead
Each finite creature can reflect only a fraction of the divine nature; thus, in the diversity of His creatures, God's infinity, unity and oneness appear to be broken into an effulfgence of manifold rays.
Edith SteinRead
People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive.
Blaise PascalRead