J. Robert Oppenheimer Quotes and Sayings - Page 1
More J. Robert Oppenheimer quote about:
- Atomic Bomb,
- Change,
- Culture,
- Evidence,
- Evil,
- History,
- Inspirational,
- Knowledge,
- Philosophy,
- Physics,
- Reality,
- Science,
- Sin,
- War,
-
“The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true.”
-- J. Robert Oppenheimer -
“Access to the Vedas is the greatest privilege this century may claim over all previous centuries.”
-- J. Robert Oppenheimer -
“Any man whose errors take ten years to correct is quite a man.”
-- J. Robert Oppenheimer -
“It is a profound and necessary truth that the deep things in science are not found because they are useful; they are found because it was possible to find them.”
-- J. Robert Oppenheimer -
“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 -
“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 -
“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 -
“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 -
“Science is not everything, but science is very beautiful.”
-- J. Robert Oppenheimer -
“No man should escape our universities without knowing how little he knows.”
-- J. Robert Oppenheimer -
“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 -
“'It worked.' (said after witnessing the first atomic detonation).”
-- J. Robert Oppenheimer -
“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 -
“The most beautiful philosophical song existing in any known tongue.”
-- J. Robert Oppenheimer -
“I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”
-- J. Robert Oppenheimer -
“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 -
“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 -
“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 -
“The powerful notion of entropy, which comes from a very special branch of physics … is certainly useful in the study of communication and quite helpful when applied in the theory of language.”
-- J. Robert Oppenheimer -
“I need physics more than friends.”
-- J. Robert Oppenheimer -
“Genius sees the answer before the question.”
-- J. Robert Oppenheimer -
“Everyone wants rather to be pleasing to women and that desire is not altogether, though it is very largely, a manifestation of vanity. But one cannot aim to be pleasing to women any more than one can aim to have taste, or beauty of expression, or happiness; for these things are not specific aims which one may learn to attain; they are descriptions of the adequacy of one's living. 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 -
“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 -
“Things which stimulate my curiosity are pretty far removed from the practical and therefore from classification.”
-- J. Robert Oppenheimer -
“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 -
“There are no secrets about the world of nature. There are secrets about the thoughts and intentions of men.”
-- J. Robert Oppenheimer -
“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 -
“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 -
“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 -
“We know that the wages of secrecy are corruption. We know that in secrecy, error undetected will flourish and subvert.”
-- J. Robert Oppenheimer
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