J. Robert Oppenheimer Quotes

If you go on with this nuclear arms race, all you are going to do is make the rubble bounce.

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

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

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.

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.

Although September 11 was horrible, it didn't threaten the survival of the human race, like nuclear weapons do.

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

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

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

This means that the only function of nuclear weapons, while they exist, is to deter a nuclear attack.

Growing up during the Cold War, I remember the seemingly imminent threat of nuclear war. In primary school we were taught to 'duck-and-cover' for protection. But even as children hiding under wooden desks, we recognized the inadequacies of this strategy.

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

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.

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

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

If we made atomic bombs, we would bring about a terrible change in the world. Who knows what would happen from this?

To me, nuclear weapons are the secret crisis of our time. Frankly, everyone needs to reread John Hersey's 'Hiroshima.'

This is the reality of nuclear weapons: they may trigger a world war; a war which, unlike previous ones, destroys all of civilization.

To have the ability to destroy all and not to do it was one of the hard tests humanity passed - but only just - in the middle of the twentieth century.

I feel impelled to speak today in a language that in a sense is new-one which I, who have spent so much of my life in the military profession, would have preferred never to use. That new language is the language of atomic warfare.

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.

If we are to be destroyed we will do it ourselves by warfare with thermonuclear weaponry.

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.

One nuclear war is going to be the last nuclear - the last war, frankly, if it really gets out of hand. And I just don't think we ought to be prepared to accept that sort of thing.

So long as nuclear weapons continue to exist, so will the temptation to threaten others with overwhelming military force.