J. Robert Oppenheimer Quotes

Quotes about:

• We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita; Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and, to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says, "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Science, People, Trying

  "NBC White Paper (The Decision to Drop the Bomb)". Documentary, January 5, 1965.

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• The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Inspirational, Funny, Life

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• Genius sees the answer before the question.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Genius, Answers

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• Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds. (quoting the Bhagavad-Gita after witnessing the first Nuclear explosion.)

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Nuclear, Gita, World

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• No man should escape our universities without knowing how little he knows.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Inspirational, Graduation, Education

  1967 In Partisan Review, Summer issue.

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• The people of this world must unite or they will perish.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  People, World, This World

  J. Robert Oppenheimer's acceptance speech for Army-Navy "Excellence" Award, November 16, 1945.

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• There must be no barriers for freedom of inquiry... There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Science, Errors, Doubt

  "J. Robert Oppenheimer" by L. Barnett in Life Magazine, Volume 7, No. 9, International Edition (p. 58), October 24, 1949.

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• Truth, not a pet, is man's best friend.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Men, Pet

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• When we deny the EVIL within ourselves, we dehumanize ourselves, and we deprive ourselves not only of our own destiny but of any possibility of dealing with the EVIL of others.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Destiny, Evil Within, Possibility

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• If atomic bombs are to be added as new weapons to the arsenals of a warring world, or to the arsenals of nations preparing for war, then the time will come when mankind will curse the names of Los Alamos and Hiroshima. The people must unite or they will perish.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  War, Science, Names

  J. Robert Oppenheimer's acceptance speech for Army-Navy "Excellence" Award, November 16, 1945.

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• There are no secrets about the world of nature. There are secrets about the thoughts and intentions of men.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Men, Secret, World

  "See It Now (A Conversation with J. Robert Oppenheimer)". Documentary (interview with Edward R. Murrow), January 4, 1955.

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• Sometimes the answer to fear does not lie in trying to explain away the causes, sometimes the answer lies in courage.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Lying, Trying, Doe

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• It is perfectly obvious that the whole world is going to hell. The only possible chance that it might not is that we do not attempt to prevent it from doing so.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  World, Might, Chance

  "Play to Live: Lectures of Alan Watts". Book edited by Mark Watts, December 1, 1982.

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• You can certainly destroy enough of humanity so that only the greatest act of faith can persuade you that what's left will be human.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Faith, Humanity, Enough

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• I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Death, Military, Hiroshima And Nagasaki

  Onthe detonationof the first atomicbomb,16 Jul1945.Quoted in Len Giovanitti and Fred FreedThe Decision to Drop the Bomb (1965).

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• Science is not everything, but science is very beautiful.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Beautiful, Science, Very Beautiful

  1966 In Look magazine.

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• The best way to send information is to wrap it up in a person.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Writing, Information, Way

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• There must be no barriers to freedom of inquiry... There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors. Our political life is also predicated on openness. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it and that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. And we know that as long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think, free to think what they will, freedom can never be lost, and science can never regress.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Freedom, Science, Men

  "J. Robert Oppenheimer" by L. Barnett in Life Magazine, Volume 7, No. 9, International Edition (p. 58), October 24, 1949.

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• Optimists think that this is the best of all possible worlds; pessimists fear they are right.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Thinking, World, Pessimist

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• Any man whose errors take ten years to correct is quite a man.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Funny, Mistake, Men

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• We may be likened to two scorpions in a bottle, each capable of killing the other, but only at the risk of his own life.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Two, Risk, Scorpions

  "Atomic Weapons and American Policy". Foreign Affairs (p. 529), July 1953.

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• Both the man of science and the man of art live always at the edge of mystery, surrounded by it. Both, as a measure of their creation, have always had to do with the harmonization of what is new with what is familiar, with the balance between novelty and synthesis, with the struggle to make partial order in total chaos.... This cannot be an easy life.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Art, Struggle, Science

  J. Robert Oppenheimer (2013). “Uncommon Sense”, p.87, Springer Science & Business Media

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• We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error, undetected, will flourish and subvert.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Wise, Believe, Men

  "Encouragement of Science". J. Robert Oppenheimer's address at Science Talent Institute (March 6, 1950), as quoted in "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists", Volume 7, No. 1 (pp. 6-8), January 1951.

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• The atomic bomb made the prospect of future war unendurable. It has led us up those last few steps to the mountain pass; and beyond there is a different country.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Change, Country, Military

  Commencement address, 1946.

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• Today, it is not only that our kings do not know mathematics, but our philosophers do not know mathematics and - to go a step further - our mathematicians do not know mathematics.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Kings, Math, Today

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