Joseph Rotblat Quotes

The papers are full of the atomic bomb [Hiroshima] which is going to revolutionize everything and blow us all to buggery. Not a bad idea.

The atom bomb is a paper tiger which the United States reactionaries use to scare people. It looks terrible, but in fact it isn't.

The decision to use the atom bomb on Japanese cities, and the consequent buildup of enormous nuclear arsenals, was made by governments, on the basis of political and military perceptions.

The atom bomb was no 'great decision.' It was merely another powerful weapon in the arsenal of righteousness.

The atomic bomb made the prospect of future war unendurable. It has led us up those last few steps to the mountain pass; and beyond there is a different country.

And I have lived since - as you have - in a period of cold war, during which we have ensured by our achievements in the science and technology of destruction that a third act in this tragedy of war will result in the peace of extinction.

Japan is the only country in the world which suffered from the scourge of nuclear weapons.

The H-Bomb Secret: How We Got It, Why We’re Telling It

Research in the realm atomic destruction, has now proceeded to point where its results may possibly be made use of in the conduct of the war. Tremendous destruction … can be wrought with a minimum of effort ….Modern technique places in the hands of human beings means of destruction that are simply incredible. German science is at its peak in this matter. It is essential that we be ahead of everybody.

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

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

The first use of the nuclear weapon gives a great advantage to the user.

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

Every thinking person fears nuclear war, and every technological nation plans for it.

The Physicist was the darling of the cold war …atomic energy was responsible for so much of the politics of the Cold War.

The lesson of history is when a war starts every nation will ultimately use whatever weapon it has available. ... Therefore, we must expect that if another war — a serious war — breaks out, we will use nuclear energy in some form.

The atomic bomb was the turn of the screw. It has made the prospect of future war unendurable.

We were at war and it was necessary and right for us to make [atomic] bombs.

Ever since Hiroshima, we've been faced with the depressing fact that you cannot un-invent something.

Long before the terrifying potential of the arms race was recognized, there was a widespread instinctive abhorrence of nuclear weapons, and a strong desire to get rid of them.

Nuclear weapons offer us nothing but a balance of terror, and a balance of terror is still terror.

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.

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

The atomic bomb certainly is the most powerful of all weapons, but it is conclusively powerful and effective only in the hands of the nation which controls the sky.

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