George Wald Quotes

I think all of you know there is no adequate defense against massive nuclear attack.

In nuclear war all men are cremated equal.

This means that the only function of nuclear weapons, while they exist, is to deter a nuclear attack.

I have to bring to your notice a terrifying reality: with the development of nuclear weapons Man has acquired, for the first time in history, the technical means to destroy the whole of civilization in a single act.

This is the reality of nuclear weapons: they may trigger a world war; a war which, unlike previous ones, destroys all of civilization.

Although September 11 was horrible, it didn't threaten the survival of the human race, like nuclear weapons do.

The real abhorrent consequence of the invention of atomic bombs is the fact that we still have them and they're spreading.

We were fortunate to have the Russians as our childhood enemies. We practiced hiding under our desks in case they had the temerity to drop a nuclear weapon.

Even with the best intentions, you can have a nuclear war, a nuclear holocaust, through miscalculation, through accidents.

I feel impelled to speak today in a language that in a sense is new-one which I, who have spent so much of my life in the military profession, would have preferred never to use. That new language is the language of atomic warfare.

My feelings of revulsion and foreboding about nuclear weapons had not changed an iota since 1945, and they have never left me. Since I was 14, the overriding objective of my life has been to prevent the occurrence of nuclear war.

One nuclear war is going to be the last nuclear - the last war, frankly, if it really gets out of hand. And I just don't think we ought to be prepared to accept that sort of thing.

I remember fear and I remember the potential of nuclear war.

What has kept the world safe from the bomb since 1945 has not been deterrence, in the sense of fear of specific weapons, so much as it's been memory. The memory of what happened at Hiroshima.

It would be our policy to use nuclear weapons wherever we felt it necessary to protect our forces and achieve our objectives.

I'm still bothered by the threat of nuclear war.

If you go on with this nuclear arms race, all you are going to do is make the rubble bounce.

The misconception that a victory can be worth its price, has in the nuclear age become a total illusion.

It's a near miracle that nuclear war has so far been avoided.

I still believe that any country understands that if they use nuclear weapons, they will be wiped out of existence. They could be irrational in many ways, but I don't think they're irrational to the point that they're ready to annihilate their own country.

All mankind is now learning that these nuclear weapons can only serve to destroy, never become beneficial.

Growing up during the Cold War, I remember the seemingly imminent threat of nuclear war. In primary school we were taught to 'duck-and-cover' for protection. But even as children hiding under wooden desks, we recognized the inadequacies of this strategy.

The human species really could have faced global thermonuclear war. During seventy years of Cold War we grew used to it.

We still live with this unbelievable threat over our heads of nuclear war. I mean, are we stupid? Do we think that the nuclear threat has gone, that the nuclear destruction of the planet is not imminent? It's a delusion to think it's gone away.

Nuclear weapons kill Americans - they don't kill Republicans or Democrats - they kill Americans.