J. Robert Oppenheimer Quotes

The reason the public loves me is that they understand everything that I do. The reason they love you is that they understand nothing of what you do.

I do not feel happy when a collection is understood too well.

Don't express your ideas too clearly. Most people think little of what they understand, and venerate what they do not.

In physics the truth is rarely perfectly clear, and that is certainly universally the case in human affairs. Hence, what is not surrounded by uncertainty cannot be the truth.

Although quantum mechanics has been around for nearly 70 years, it is still not generally understood or appreciated, even by those that use it to do calculations.

Any effort... to make the obscure obvious is likely to be unappealing, for the penalty of failure is confusion while the reward of success is banality.

It is in the darkest skies that stars are best seen.

If I am ever obscure in my expressions, do not fancy that therefore I am deep. If I were really deep, all the world would understand, though they might not appreciate. The perfectly popular style is the perfectly scientific one. To me an obscurity is a reason for suspecting a fallacy.

Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.

The obscurity of a writer is generally in proportion to his incapacity.

It's really a trade-off: you're always having to decide whether you're going to say the more ambitious thing, and lose a little clarity - or are you going to say something really clearly, and sacrifice a little nuance? Get too obscure, and you sound like a pretentious asshole; go overboard with the clarity, and you sound like you're talking down to your audience, or like you yourself are a reductive simpleton.

I admire writers who can make complicated things simple, but my own talent has been to make simple things complicated.

Life is beautiful in all it's colors, even the darker ones, they're here for a reason.

To see a candle's light one must take it into a dark place.

He, who, in view of its inconsistencies, says of human nature the same that, in view of its contrasts, is said of the divine nature, that it is past finding out, thereby evinces a better appreciation of it than he who, by always representing it in a clear light, leaves it to be inferred that he clearly knows all about it.

Let us consider that we are all partially insane. It will explain us to each other; it will unriddle many riddles; it will make clear and simple many things which are involved in haunting and harassing difficulties and obscurities now.

Silly ideas, worth the admission price in smiles, but they're true. Is high-energy physics interesting because it's true or because it's crazy?

An answer, once found, is dull; and the only remaining interest lies in a further effort to render equally dull what is still obscure enough to be intriguing.

The signals we give-yes or no, or maybe-/should be clear/the darkness around us is deep.

A person who wasn't outraged on first hearing about quantum theory didn't understand what had been said.

You learn to present dark things without including their ability to harm, treasuring them for what they are.

You can't see the forest for the trees.

Anyone who can contemplate quantum mechanics without getting dizzy hasn't understood it.

I think I can safely say that nobody understands Quantum Mechanics.