Nuclear War Quotes

• I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this.

  Steve Jobs

  War, Androids, Stolen

  Steve Jobs (0101). “Motivating Thoughts of Steve Jobs”, p.18, Prabhat Prakashan

  65 Copy quote

  Show source

• Mankind needs peace more than ever, for our entire planet, threatened by nuclear war, is in danger of total destruction. A destruction only man can provoke, only man can prevent.

  Elie Wiesel

  Peace, War, Men

  17 Copy quote

• I want to say, and this is very important: at the end we lucked out. It was luck that prevented nuclear war. We came that close to nuclear war at the end. Rational individuals: Kennedy was rational; Khrushchev was rational; Castro was rational. Rational individuals came that close to total destruction of their societies. And that danger exists today.

  Robert McNamara

  War, Luck, Important

  "The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara". Documentary, August 30, 2003.

  71 Copy quote

  Show source

• The survivors (of a nuclear war) would envy the dead.

  Nikita Khrushchev

  War, Envy, Survivor

  164 Copy quote

• The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us.

  John F. Kennedy

  War, Nuclear Disarmament, Nukes

  Address to the United Nations General Assembly, delivered 25 September 1961

  70 Copy quote

  Show source

• Except for fools and madmen, everyone knows that nuclear war would he an unprecedented human catastrophe.

  Carl Sagan

  War, Nuclear, Fool

  7 Copy quote

• I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Funny, Wisdom

  Albert Einstein (2003). “Einstein's 1912 manuscript on the special theory of relativity”, George Braziller

  191 Copy quote

  Show source

• In nuclear war, all men are cremated equal.

  Dexter Gordon

  War, Men, Nuclear

  13 Copy quote

• There are two problems for our species' survival - nuclear war and environmental catastrophe - and we're hurtling towards them. Knowingly.

  Noam Chomsky

  War, Two, Survival

  "The NS Interview: Noam Chomsky". Interview with Alyssa Mcdonald, www.newstatesman.com. September 13, 2010.

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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?

  Ronald Reagan

  War, Two Nations, Nuclear Missiles

  United States. President (1981-1989 : Reagan), Ronald Reagan (1984). “Ronald Reagan”

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• Remember that in any major nuclear war, the first strike destroys the country that attacks; it's been known for years. The first strike of a major power is very likely to cause what's called nuclear winter, leads to global famine for years and everything's basically gone. Some survivors straggling around. Could [Donald Trump] do it? Who knows.

  Noam Chomsky

  Country, War, Winter

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• Some programs have been theatrical masterpieces, but all we're seeing is the negative side of nuclear war.

  Barry Goldwater

  War, Negative, Nuclear

  4 Copy quote

• A Pentagon official once said the people who would actually push the button probably have never seen a person die. He said the only hope -and it's a strange thought - is if they put the button to launch the nuclear war behind a man's heart. The President, then, with a rusty knife, would have to cut out the man's heart, kill the man, to get to the button.

  Robin Williams

  War, Heart, Cutting

  14 Copy quote

• With proper tactics, nuclear war need not be as destructive as it appears.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  War, Needs, Nuclear

  4 Copy quote

• One of the dangers [that Donald Trump poses, due to the augmented risk of nuclear war] is unquestionable. Of the two existential threats - the threats to the termination of the species basically and most other species - one of them, climate change, on that I think there's no basis for discussion.

  Noam Chomsky

  War, Thinking, Two

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the sermon on the mount.

  Omar N. Bradley

  History, Atoms, Nuclear

  Speech on Armistice Day, Boston, Mass., 11 Nov. 1948

  81 Copy quote

  Show source

• Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war that we know about peace, more about killing that we know about living.

  Omar N. Bradley

  War, Evil, Nuclear Missiles

  30 Copy quote

• Along with the possibility of extinction of mankind by nuclear war, the central problem of our age has therefore become the contamination of man's total environment with such substances of incredible potential for harm-substances that accumulate in the tissues of plants and animals and even penetrate the germ cells to shatter or alter the very material of heredity upon which the shape of the future depends.

  Rachel Carson

  War, Animal, Men

  Rachel Carson (2002). “Silent Spring”, p.8, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• It's a near miracle that nuclear war has so far been avoided.

  Noam Chomsky

  War, Miracle, Nuclear

  Noam Chomsky (2016). “Who Rules the World?”, p.106, Metropolitan Books

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Teller contended, not implausibly, that hydrogen bombs keep the peace, or at least prevent thermonuclear war, because the consequences of warfare between nuclear powers are now too dangerous. We haven't had a nuclear war yet, have we? But all such arguments assume that the nuclear-armed nations are and always will be, without exception, rational actors, and that bouts of anger and revenge and madness will never overtake their leaders (or military and secret police officers in charge of nuclear weapons). In the century of Hitler and Stalin, this seems ingenuous.

  Carl Sagan

  Revenge, Military, War

  4 Copy quote

• I remember fear and I remember the potential of nuclear war.

  Jack Scalia

  War, Nuclear, Remember

  8 Copy quote

• What is the only provocation that could bring about the use of nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons. What is the priority target for nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons. What is the only established defense against nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons. How do we prevent the use of nuclear weapons? By threatening to use nuclear weapons. And we can't get rid of nuclear weapons, because of nuclear weapons. The intransigence, it seems, is a function of the weapons themselves.

  Martin Amis

  Priorities, Defense, Nuclear

  "Einstein's Monsters". Book by Martin Amis, 1987.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Pro football is like nuclear warfare. There are no winners, only survivors.

  Frank Gifford

  Sports, Football, Nfl

  53 Copy quote

• We will not prematurely or unnecessarily risk the costs of a worldwide nuclear war in which even the fruits of victory would be ashes in our mouth - but neither shall we shrink from that risk any time it must be faced.

  John F. Kennedy

  War, Risk, Victory

  Cuban Missile Crisis Address to the Nation, delivered 22 October 1962

  51 Copy quote

  Show source

• A destruction, an annihilation that only man can provoke, only man can prevent.

  Elie Wiesel

  Men, Genocide, Destruction

  59 Copy quote