J. Robert Oppenheimer Quotes

A nuclear weapon is not just a football that you can use at will.

We are still at the stumbling stage in atomic weapons.

It is of the greatest importance that people and governments in many more countries than ours should realize that it is more dangerous to have access to nuclear arms than not to possess them.

Any possession of nuclear weapons in the Middle East is a danger.

If there was a market in mass-produced portable nuclear weapons, we'd market them, too.

Nuclear weapons are the greatest national security risk to the United States, and they are the most important weapons in our arsenal.

The Soviet Union will not produce an atomic bomb for at least another 4 years

You know, people have actually changed the way they think about nuclear weapons now, post-Cold War, post-9/11. The threat of nuclear weapons is not so much Russia attacking the United States, China. It's not a state-to-state - it's obviously terrorism; it's proliferation.

I think one country with nuclear weapons is one country too many.

As long as some of us choose to rely on nuclear weapons, we continue to risk that these same weapons will become increasingly attractive to others.

It used to be you needed to have a very large sophisticated state before you could even have a nuclear weapon... Now the technology is widespread enough. It doesn't take very many people to be able to cobble together a devastating attack, and all it takes is one.

Some day, somebody is going to have to start talking about what happens to us all a decade from now if we let these North Koreans and the Iranians go forward with their nuclear weapons program.

We are categorically against any new military nuclear power, be it Iran, be it North Korea, be it anyone.

I can tell you one thing, Iran is closer to developing nuclear weapons today than it was a week ago, or a month ago or a year ago. It's just moving on with its efforts.

When George W. Bush came into office, North Korea had maybe one nuclear weapon and verifiably wasn't producing any more.

The larger picture here is that a North Korea with nuclear weapons adds to the larger proliferation risk.

We've already seen proliferation. We started it with Britain, then France. Then we benignly let the Israelis do it. The Pakistanis and the Indians have recently done it. The Chinese have nuclear weapons.

Nut With A Nuke

There is only one thing worse than one nation having the atomic bomb -- that's two nations having it.

You see what pressure the enemies of the world of Islam exert with regard to the issue of nuclear energy in Iran. They know we are not pursuing the atomic bomb. They are concerned because of the progress of science in this country, and because of the progress of technology in any Islamic country. This Islamic country has shown it does not surrender to America's policies. It has shown that it is not afraid of America. They believe that this Islamic country should not have the most important technology in the world today --- nuclear technology. That is why they exert such pressure.

We can do better than condone a world in which nuclear weapons are accepted as commonplace.

In the past, science has often been able to provide adequate protection against new weapons it has given into the hands of an aggressor, but it cannot promise such efficient protection against the destructive use of nuclear power

This diffusion of nuclear weapons is terrible…terrible. Imagine a world with a large number of states with nuclear bombs.

I say in all sincerity that the nuclear arms race has no military purpose. Wars cannot be fought with nuclear weapons; their existence only adds to our perils because of the illusions which they have generated.

Russia will likely have the atomic bomb by mid-1953.