Luis Walter Alvarez Quotes

I can't believe that this world can go on beyond our generation and on down to succeeding generations with this kind of weapon on both sides poised at each other without someday some fool or some maniac or some accident triggering the kind of war that is the end of the line for all of us. And I just think of what a sigh of relief would go up from everyone on this earth if someday-and this is what I have-my hope, way in the back of my head-is that if we start down the road to reduction, maybe one day in doing that, somebody will say, 'Why not all the way? Let's get rid of all these things'.

Since the advent of nuclear weapons, it seems clear that there is no longer any alternative to peace, if there is to be a happy and well world.

Well, a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East would be a wonderful thing.

Let us not deceive ourselves; we must elect world peace or world destruction.

If the world is disarmed, and remains disarmed, there will be no more world wars.

India can live without nuclear weapons. That's our dream, and it should be the dream of the U.S. also.

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

I call upon the scientific community in our country, those who gave us nuclear weapons, to turn their great talents now to the cause of mankind and world peace: to give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete.

We have a moral imperative to keep up the search for something better than mutual assured destruction.

We must not force an adversary into a choice between humiliating defeat and nuclear war.

We still have to deal as an organization of labor with the number one problem facing the people of this nation and every nation: that of war or peace; an armament race or disarmament; higher or lower living standards for all the world’s people;

We believe in peace in the settlement of all disputes through peaceful means, in the abolition of war, and, more particularly, nuclear war.

There is an urgent need for disarmament of all kinds, but especially nuclear disarmament.

My short-term vision is the abolition of nuclear weapons. My long-term vision is the abolition of war.

I firmly believe that nuclear war is absolutely impossible. I don't think anyone in the world wants a nuclear war - not even the Russians.

If we are to put the era of nuclear terror behind us, we must struggle against the real 'enemy.' That enemy is not nuclear weapons per se, nor is it the states that possess or develop them. The real enemy that we must confront is the ways of thinking that justify nuclear weapons; the readiness to annihilate others when they are seen as a threat or as a hindrance to the realization of our objectives.

Bring the absolute power to destroy other nations under the absolute control of all nations. Weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us...No longer is the quest for disarmament a sign of weakness, (nor) the destruction of arms a dream - it is a practical matter of life or death. The risks inherent in disarmament pale in comparison to the risks inherent in an unlimited arms race.

There will never be a nuclear war; there's too much real estate involved.

Even a fool could see that one didn't need a war, nuclear or otherwise, to destroy oneself; the rising cost of weaponry could do that quite nicely.

I think that if the atomic bomb did nothing more, it scared the people to the point where they realized that either they must do something about preventing war or there is a chance that there might be a morning when we would not wake up.

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?

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

It was about the compelling need to make countries get along to prevent war, in contrast with the totally petty and selfish bullshit that drives the individuals who are supposedly in charge of these countries. It's hard to believe that these self-centered people have nuclear weapons that they can fire at any moment.

We have to get rid of those nuclear weapons.

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