J. Robert Oppenheimer Quotes - Page 2

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• We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Wise, Believe, Power

  "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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• In a free world, if it is to remain free, we must maintain, with our lives if need be, but surely by our lives, the opportunity for a man to learn anything

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Opportunity, Men, Needs

  J. Robert Oppenheimer, Isidor Isaac Rabi (1969). “Oppenheimer”

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• We may anticipate a state of affairs in which two Great Powers will each be in a position to put an end to the civilization and life of the other, though not without risking its own. 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, Civilization, Risk

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• Maybe General Groves was right. Maybe we should just banish thinking forever.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Thinking, Forever, Grove

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• It is not possible to be a scientist unless you believe that it is good to learn... that it is of the highest value to share your knowledge... with anyone who is interested... that the knowledge of the world, and the power which this gives, is a thing which is of intrinsic value to humanity

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Believe, Giving, Humanity

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• To try to be happy is to try to build a machine with no other specification than that it shall run noiselessly.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Happy, Running, Trying

  J. Robert Oppenheimer's letter to his brother Frank Oppenheimer (October 14, 1929), as quoted in "Robert Oppenheimer: Letters and Recollections" edited by Alice Kimball Smith (p. 136), 1995.

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• The physicists have known sin; and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  War, Vulgarity Is, World

  Physics in the ContemporaryWorld (1947)

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• We know too much for one man to know too much.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Men, Too Much, Knows

  J. Robert Oppenheimer (2013). “Uncommon Sense”, p.85, Springer Science & Business Media

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• When you see something that is technically sweet you go ahead and do it.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Sweet, Atomic Bomb

  Quoted in In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer: usaec Transcript of Hearing Before Personnel Security Board (1954)

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• Pragmatism is an intellectually safe but ultimately sterile philosophy.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Philosophy, Safe, Pragmatism

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• We know that the wages of secrecy are corruption. We know that in secrecy error, undetected, will flourish and subvert.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Errors, Wages, Corruption

  "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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• A pragmatist is concerned with results, not reality.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Reality, Results, Pragmatists

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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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• I can't think that it would be terrible of me to say - and it is occasionally true - that I need physics more than friends.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Thinking, Would Be, Needs

  J. Robert Oppenheimer's letter to his brother Frank Oppenheimer (October 14, 1929), as quoted in "Robert Oppenheimer: Letters and Recollections" edited by Alice Kimball Smith (p. 135), 1995.

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• There is something irreversible about acquiring knowledge; and the simulation of the search for it differs in a most profound way from the reality.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Knowledge, Science, Reality

  J. Robert Oppenheimer (1947). “Physics in the Contemporary World”

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• There are children playing in the streets who could solve some of my top problems in physics, because they have modes of sensory perception that I lost long ago.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Inspirational, Children, Science

  "V 65: New Challenges for human communications, Volume 4". Book by International Center for the Typographic Arts, Southern Illinois University, 1965.

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• Taken as a story of human achievement, and human blindness, the discoveries in the sciences are among the great epics.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Taken, Epic, Discovery

  J. Robert Oppenheimer, American Institute of Physics (1972). “Reflections on the resonances of physics history”

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• When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Sweet, History, Bombs

  Quoted in In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer: usaec Transcript of Hearing Before Personnel Security Board (1954)

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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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• This is a world in which each of us, knowing his limitations, knowing the evils of superficiality and the terrors of fatigue, will have to cling to what is close to him, to what he knows, to what he can do. . .

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Knowing, Evil, World

  J. Robert Oppenheimer (2013). “Uncommon Sense”, p.86, Springer Science & Business Media

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• We hunger for nobility: the rare words and acts that harmonize simplicity and truth.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Simplicity, Hunger, Nobility

  J. Robert Oppenheimer (2013). “Uncommon Sense”, p.137, Springer Science & Business Media

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• It is proper to the role of the scientist that he not merely find new truth and communicate it to his fellows, but that he teach, that he try to bring the most honest and intelligible account of new knowledge to all who will try to learn.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Science, Trying, Roles

  J. Robert Oppenheimer (2013). “Uncommon Sense”, p.82, Springer Science & Business Media

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• To the confusion of our enemies.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Confusion, Enemy

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• The open society, the unrestricted access to knowledge, the unplanned and uninhibited association of men for its furtherance-these are what may make a vast, complex, ever growing, ever changing, ever more specialized and expert technological world, nevertheless a world of human community.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Knowledge, Science, Men

  J. Robert Oppenheimer (2014). “Atom and Void: Essays on Science and Community”, p.73, Princeton University Press

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• I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita... "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.

  J. Robert Oppenheimer

  Change, Gita, World

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

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