Martha Gellhorn Quotes

The world has been close to war before - but now man, who has survived all previous threats to his existence, has taken into his mortal hands the power to exterminate the entire species some seven times over.

The anniversary of Hiroshima, should be a day of somber reflection, not only on the terrible events of that day in 1945, but also on what they revealed: that humans, in their dedicated quest to extend their capacities for destruction, had finally found a way to approach the ultimate limit.

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.

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

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.

The combination of human fallibility and nuclear weapons can destroy nations.

The human and environmental devastation caused by nuclear weapons - whether by testing, mistake or malice - is the very reason we need to eliminate them altogether.

The range of weapons at the disposal of military powers is terrifying in its capacity to damage the world and its inhabitants, perhaps even to bring humanity's long story to its end.

Generation after generation can't just be loaded with more and more nuclear weapons and not ultimately dance to that music.

The atom bomb fueled the entire world that came after it. It showed that indiscriminate killing and indiscriminate homicide on a mass level was possible ... whereas if you look at warfare up until that point, you had to see somebody to shoot them or maim them, you had to look at them. You don't have to do that anymore.

Every inhabitant of this planet must contemplate the day when this planet may no longer be habitable .. The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us.

As long as nuclear weapons exist, the chances of survival of the human species are quite slight.

By far the single greatest danger facing humankind - in fact, all living beings on our planet - is the threat of nuclear destruction.

They'll be no learning period with nuclear weapons. Make one mistake and you're going to destroy nations.

In my humble opinion, in the nuclear world, the true enemy is war itself.

We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.

The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us.

There's a very simple reason for focusing on the nuclear issue. Many, many issues are of supreme importance in one way or another, but if we blow ourselves up with nuclear weapons, no other issue is really going to matter. Quite possibly there would be no other human beings left to be concerned about anything else.

In a nuclear age, and in an age of serious environmental degradation, apocalyptic belief creates a serious second order danger. The precarious logic of self-interest that saw us through the Cold War would collapse if the leaders of one nuclear state came to welcome, or ceased to fear mass death.

The problem of an atomic war must not be confused by minor problems such as Communism versus capitalism. An atomic war would kill everyone, left, right, or center.

Thank God for the bomb. Nuke ya, nuke ya.

[Nuclear war]... may not be desirable.

The power to destroy the world by the use of nuclear weapons is a power that cannot be used - we cannot accept the idea of such monstrous immorality.

Unconditional war can no longer lead to unconditional victory. It can no longer serve to settle disputes. It can no longer concern the Great Powers alone. For a nuclear disaster, spread by wind and water and fear, could well engulf the great and the small, the rich and the poor, the committed and the uncommitted alike. Mankind must put an end to war--or war will put an end to mankind.

I wonder what I can do about war. Is it the destiny of human kind to eventually wipe ourselves out with these weapons of mass destruction? Are we stupid to think that we can control them?