Sydney J. Harris Quotes

Nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation are not utopian ideals. They are critical to global peace and security.

Yesterday, we fought wars which destroyed cities. Today, we are concerned with avoiding a war which will destroy the earth. We can adapt atomic energy to produce electricity and move ships, but can we control its use in anger?

Why I oppose the nuclear-arms race: I prefer the human race.

I want to move to a world of no nuclear weapons but I want to do that through multilateral disarmament so that we all disarm together.

Peace and stability cannot be achieved by means of nuclear weapons.

The way to win an atomic war is to make sure it never starts.

If the [present] deterrent is the mutual annihilation of each other ..., what else do we need and why?

The nuclear threat is a direct product of the cult of force that has dominated the world for centuries.

In a nuclear age, each of us is threatened when peace is not secured everywhere.

Nuclear weapons are only good for deterring. It is insane that two men, sitting on opposite ends of the world, should be able to decide to bring an end to civilization.

Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. The way to win an atomic war is to make certain it never starts. And the way to make sure it never starts is to abolish the dangerous costly nuclear stockpiles which imprison mankind.

And now, as in no other age, we seek it [peace] because we have been warned, by the power of modern weapons, that peace may be the only climate possible for human life itself.

I don't believe in war, I believe in the principle of deterrence.

I will confine myself to reaffirming the Israel will not be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons to the region.

A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. The only value in our two nations possessing nuclear weapons is to make sure they will never be used. But then would it not be better to do away with them entirely?

We have to get rid of those nuclear weapons.

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

Nuclear disarmament is one of the greatest legacies we can pass on to future generations.

Responsible statesmen have only one choice - to do everything possible to prevent a nuclear catastrophe. Any other position is short-sighted; more so, it is suicidal.

The real abhorrent consequence of the invention of atomic bombs is the fact that we still have them and they're spreading.

World War II, the atomic bomb, the Cold War, made it hard for Americans to continue their optimism.

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.

Nuclear weapons are infinitely less important in our foreign policy than they were in the days of the Cold War. I don't think we need nuclear weapons any longer.

The surest way to prevent war is not to fear it.

We must eliminate all nuclear weapons in order to eliminate the grave risk they pose to our world. This will require persistent efforts by all countries and peoples. A nuclear war would affect everyone, and all have a stake in preventing this nightmare.