We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special
Spoken byStephen Hawking8 January 1942 – 14 March 2018 · theoretical physicist, University of Cambridge
Hawking gave this as the closing answer of a long interview conducted at his Cambridge office by Klaus Franke and Henry Glass and printed in Der Spiegel, issue 42/1988. One caveat the quote sites never mention: the magazine printed the answer in German, so the polished English sentence everyone shares is a rendering of that text, not a transcript.
“We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special” Stephen Hawking, SPIEGEL interview "Wir alle wollen wissen, woher wir kommen," Der Spiegel 42/1988 (16 October 1988). Printed in German; this English wording is a common uncredited rendering. Verified at Quotle.info
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In context
Evoking the world of Stephen Hawking — Theoretical physicist · Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, Cambridge, 1979–2009. Theme: "We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Minimalist
Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Provenance
The SPIEGEL-Gespräch, October 1988
Source
»Wir alle wollen wissen, woher wir kommen« — SPIEGEL-Gespräch with Stephen Hawking
Published
Der Spiegel, issue 42/1988 — dated 16 October 1988 on spiegel.de; Wikiquote cites 17 October 1988
Interviewers
Klaus Franke and Henry Glass, at Hawking's office in Cambridge
Translation
Printed in German. The familiar English sentence is an uncredited rendering; no English transcript located.
SPIEGEL: Die Frage nach unserem Standort im Universum scheint Sie nahezu übermächtig zu beschäftigen. Haben Sie schon eine Antwort darauf? — HAWKING: Wir sind nur eine etwas fortgeschrittene Brut von Affen auf einem kleinen Planeten, der um einen höchst durchschnittlichen Stern kreist. Aber wir können das Universum verstehen, und das macht aus uns etwas sehr Besonderes.
Closing exchange, SPIEGEL-Gespräch 42/1988
That is the last exchange of the interview, exactly as Der Spiegel printed it. Rendered literally: ‘We are only a somewhat advanced breed of apes on a small planet that orbits a very average star. But we can understand the universe, and that makes us something very special.’ The sentence in circulation is a smoother, uncredited version of the same words.
Wikiquote ↗ carries the line in its sourced section — not under Attributed or Misattributed — and cites Der Spiegel (17 October 1988). That gave us a publication and a week to check.
TIME ↗, in its 2018 collection of Hawking quotations, independently reports that he told it to “German paper Der Spiegel” in 1988.
The interview itself is online: »Wir alle wollen wissen, woher wir kommen« ↗, Der Spiegel 42/1988, by Klaus Franke and Henry Glass at Cambridge. The monkeys sentence is Hawking’s closing answer — in German. That confirms the attribution and, at the same time, shows the English wording is a rendering.
German quote sites carry only the first clause and no citation at all (zitate7.de ↗), and at least one English database dates the line to 1989 (The Quotations Page ↗) — the two ways this quote degrades in transit.
The line first appeared in a magazine interview published in 1988, so it is firmly in copyright in the United States — nothing first published in 1931 or later is public domain by age alone. Quoting the sentence with attribution is ordinary short-excerpt use; the interview as a whole belongs to Der Spiegel, and Hawking’s own words to his estate.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Fact-check
What goes wrong with this one
Nobody else claims this line. The drift here is in the words and the date, not the name — and the most common distortion cuts the sentence that carries the whole point.
✕
WordingStephen Hawking — right speaker, imported English rendering
Der Spiegel printed the answer in German: “Wir sind nur eine etwas fortgeschrittene Brut von Affen auf einem kleinen Planeten, der um einen höchst durchschnittlichen Stern kreist. Aber wir können das Universum verstehen, und das macht aus uns etwas sehr Besonderes” (Der Spiegel 42/1988 ↗). Rendered literally that is ‘only a somewhat advanced breed of apes on a small planet that orbits a very average star’. The famous English drops the hedge and compresses the orbit into ‘a minor planet of a very average star’. No translator is credited anywhere, and rival English versions circulate — one site gives it as “a little advanced breed of monkeys on a small planet orbiting around a very average star” (Knowol ↗).
✕
TruncationStephen Hawking, first sentence only half-quote
German-language quote sites routinely run the opening clause alone and stop — “Wir sind nur eine etwas fortgeschrittene Brut von Affen auf einem kleinen Planeten, der um einen höchst durchschnittlichen Stern kreist” with nothing after it (zitate7.de ↗). That leaves a bleak shrug where Hawking actually delivered a boast. The second half is the answer; the first half is only the setup.
✓Hawking really said it, as the last answer of a SPIEGEL-Gespräch in his Cambridge office (Der Spiegel 42/1988 ↗) — but he said it to a German magazine, and the sentence the internet quotes is an English rendering of the German they printed.
Context
Why he said it, and where
It is autumn 1988 and Stephen Hawking is the most famous scientist on earth. A Brief History of Time, published earlier that year, is on the bestseller lists, and two editors from Der Spiegel, Klaus Franke and Henry Glass, have come to his office at Cambridge with a stenographer. The conversation ranges over the Big Bang, whether the universe’s beginning requires a creator, consciousness compared with computers, and what might become of the human race.
The monkeys line is not a stray aphorism dropped mid-conversation. It is the answer to the very last substantive question the magazine asks — whether Hawking has arrived at an answer about our place in the universe — which makes it a deliberate closing statement. And the whole force of it is in the turn: the humbling first half exists only to set up the second.
“But we can understand the Universe” — the half that keeps getting cut.
A harsher cousin of the same image
Hawking used a blunter version of the same picture in 1995, on the television programme Reality on the Rocks: Beyond Our Ken, where he called the human race “a chemical scum on a moderate-sized planet, orbiting around a very average star” (Wikiquote ↗). Same cosmology, no consolation attached — which is worth knowing, because the two lines are often filed together and the 1988 one is the one with the redemptive second half.
Explore
Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
1942–2018 · Theoretical physicist · Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, Cambridge, 1979–2009
Stephen Hawking spent almost his whole career at Cambridge, holding the Lucasian Professorship of Mathematics from 1979 to 2009 and later directing research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology. Diagnosed with motor neurone disease as a young man, he did his work on black holes and the origin of the universe through decades of worsening paralysis, latterly speaking through a synthesiser. A Brief History of Time, published in 1988, made him the most famous scientist alive — which is why two editors from a German newsmagazine were sitting in his office that October.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Der Spiegel 42/1988
Klaus Franke and Henry Glass, “»Wir alle wollen wissen, woher wir kommen«” (SPIEGEL-Gespräch with Stephen Hawking), Der Spiegel, no. 42/1988 (16 October 1988). Printed in German; the widely circulated English wording is an uncredited rendering, and Wikiquote cites the issue as 17 October 1988.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special’?” Last verified 17 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/we-are-just-an-advanced-breed-of-monkeys-on-a-minor-planet/