Joseph Rotblat Quotes

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.

In a world which is armed to its teeth with nuclear weapons, every quarrel or difference of opinion may lead to violence of a kind quite different from what is possible today.

We do not believe that a nuclear war should be fought and we do not believe that a nuclear war can be won.

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

We have a moral imperative to keep up the search for something better than mutual assured destruction.

I would not recommend the use of any atomic weapon, no matter how small, when both sides have the power to destroy the world.

If the [present] deterrent is the mutual annihilation of each other ..., what else do we need and why?

Disarmament has become the urgent imperative of our time. I do not say this because I equate the absence of arms to peace, or because I believe that bringing an end to the nuclear arms race automatically guarantees the peace, or because the elimination of nuclear warheads from the arsenals of the world will bring in its wake that change in attitude requisite to the peaceful settlement of disputes between nations. Disarmament is vital today, quite simply, because of the immense destructive capacity of which men dispose.

By God, war is not an option for two nuclear countries.

The only use for an atomic bomb is to keep somebody else from using one.

In 1960 I published a book that attempted to direct attention to the possibility of a thermonuclear war, to ways of reducing the likelihood of such a war, and to methods for coping with the consequences should war occur despite our efforts to avoid it.

Nuclear weapons are infinitely less important in our foreign policy than they were in the days of the Cold War. I don't think we need nuclear weapons any longer.

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

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

If men can develop weapons that are so terrifying as to make the thought of global war include almost a sentence for suicide, you would think that man's intelligence and his comprehension... would include also his ability to find a peaceful solution.

There is no direct evidence that nuclear weapons prevented a world war. Conversely, it is known that they nearly caused one.

Nuclear war is such an emotional subject that many people see the weapons themselves as the common enemy of humanity.

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.

I could not conceive of any President engaging in all-out nuclear war unless we were in danger of all-out devastation ourselves.

If an SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative) system were to keep out ninety percent of incoming nuclear missiles, it would be a ninety percent success and most Americans would be dead.

The way to win an atomic war is to make sure it never starts.

If the Third World War is fought with nuclear weapons, the fourth will be fought with bows and arrows.

For decades, we and the Soviets have lived under the threat of mutual assured destruction; if either resorted to the use of nuclear weapons, the other could retaliate and destroy the one who had started it. Is there either logic or morality in believing that if one side threatens to kill tens of millions of our people, our only recourse is to threaten killing tens of millions of theirs?