“We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet.”

Also quoted in "Stephen Hawking warns over making contact with aliens" http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8642558.stm at BBC News (25 April 2010).
Into The Universe with Stephen Hawking (2010)
Context: If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans. … We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Oct. 1, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet." by Stephen Hawking?
Stephen Hawking photo
Stephen Hawking 122
British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author 1942–2018

Related quotes

“No matter how good somebody's life looks from the outside, you can be sure there's something about it you wouldn't want to have in your life.”

Jean Ferris (1939–2015) American children's writer

Source: Twice Upon a Marigold

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“We meet these people every day. And so this is not a foreign subject. It is not something far off. It is a problem that meets us in everyday life. We meet it in ourselves, we meet in other selves: the problem of selfcenteredness.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Source: 1950s, Conquering Self-centeredness (1957)
Context: Life has its beginning and its maturity comes into being when an individual rises above self to something greater. Few individuals learn this, and so they go through life merely existing and never living. Now you see signs all along in your everyday life with individuals who are the victims of self-centeredness. They are the people who live an eternal “I.” They do not have the capacity to project the “I” into the “Thou." They do not have the mental equipment for an eternal, dangerous and sometimes costly altruism. They live a life of perpetual egotism. And they are the victims all around of the egocentric predicament. They start out, the minute you talk with them, talking about what they can do, what they have done. They’re the people who will tell you, before you talk with them five minutes, where they have been and who they know. They’re the people who can tell you in a few seconds, how many degrees they have and where they went to school and how much money they have. We meet these people every day. And so this is not a foreign subject. It is not something far off. It is a problem that meets us in everyday life. We meet it in ourselves, we meet in other selves: the problem of selfcenteredness.

Demi Moore photo

“Models, even male models — how small they've gotten! It looks great for the clothes, but it's not what you want in real life. Why do we have to keep looking at ourselves and measuring?”

Demi Moore (1962) American actress

Demi Moore Cover Interview - Demi Moore on Fame and Family - Harper's BAZAAR August 3, 2010 http://www.harpersbazaar.com/magazine/cover/demi-moore-cover-interview-0410

Gordon B. Hinckley photo

“By and large, I have come to see that if we complain about life, it is because we are thinking only of ourselves.”

Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Words of the Prophet: Forget Yourself and Serve, New Era, Jul 2006, 2–5.

Junot Díaz photo
Dolly Parton photo

“Wouldn't it be something if we could have things we love in abudance without their losing that special attraction the want of them held for us.”

Dolly Parton (1946) American singer-songwriter and actress

Source: Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business

Natalie Goldberg photo
C.G. Jung photo

“We meet ourselves time and again in a thousand disguises on the path of life.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology
Richard Bach photo
Bhakti Tirtha Swami photo

Related topics