Hyman Rickover Quotes

No nuclear weapon has detonated. Some nuclear weapons have exploded and spread radioactive plutonium…. The nuclear weapons of today are much safer than those of the 1980s. I worry about the way they are managed however.

… literature is the only consciousness we possess and that its role as consciousness must inform us of our ability to comprehend the hideous danger of nuclear power.

I have no hope that a nuclear disaster can be avoided.

Our nuclear scientists and engineers have done a splendid job, and naturally, the entire nation has risen to salute their professional excellence, discipline, and patriotism. They have had the benefit of having been led in the past by great men like Homi Bhabha and Vikram Sarabhai.

The whole nuclear thing is a terrible mess and it's hard for me to understand why it is that we, the United States, seem to be the only ones that are really particularly concerned about it and prepared to do something.

Nuclear arms and atomic power represent a technology in which coexistence with man is extremely difficult.

I wouldn't call myself anti-nuclear.

In terms of weapons, the best disarmament tool so far is nuclear energy. We have been taking down the Russian warheads, turning it into electricity. 10 percent of American electricity comes from decommissioned warheads.

It is not productive to see things in simple black and white, and talk in either anti-nuclear or pro-nuclear terms.

I don't know why people are always afraid of a nuclear blast.

I do not believe that nuclear power is worth it, if it creates radiation.

Unless Iran’s leadership believes that the costs of building a nuclear weapon will be greater than the benefit those weapons will provide, the Islamic Republic will become a nuclear-armed state.

I say the word N-U-C-L-E-R the same way that George W. Bush says it.

I argue that for every country to have an independent fuel cycle is the wrong way to go. Because any country which has a complete fuel cycle is a latent nuclear weapons country, in the sense that it is not far from making a nuclear weapon.

We have every interest in seeing that the military use of nuclear power will be contained.

When it comes to nuclear technology, the Iranian people are very sensitive. It is a part of our national pride, and nuclear technology has become indigenous.

My entry into the environmental arena was through the issue that so dramatically - and destructively - demonstrates the link between science and social action: nuclear weapons.

I think we ultimately ought to look to put all uranium enrichment and fuel reprocessing, if any is done, under multinational control. Those are the two technologies by which nuclear energy can be translated into nuclear weapons programmes.

So terrible a weapon simply had to have an important peaceful use ... We were grimly determined to prove that this discovery was not just a weapon.

The only reason to treat nuclear power differently from all the other developments in the field of physics is its staggering possibilities as a means of political pressure in peace and sudden destruction in war.

By developing atomic energy for peaceful purposes, you reach the nuclear option. There are no two atomic energies.

We'll eat grass, but we'll make a nuclear bomb.

In the past, scientists could disclaim direct responsibility for the use to which mankind had put their disinterested discoveries. We cannot take the same attitude now because the success which we have achieved in the development of nuclear power is fraught with infinitely greater dangers than were all the inventions of the past.

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.

Maintaining a U. S. Nuclear Arsenal presents only one benefit today: deterring the use of nuclear weapons by others. Thus, there is simply no reason for nuclear weapons to play a central role in U. S. Defense Policy any longer.