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

Despite the vision and farseeing wisdom of our wartime heads of state, the physicists have felt the peculiarly intimate responsibility for suggesting, for supporting, and in the end, in large measure, for achieving the realization of atomic weapons. Nor can we forget that these weapons as they were in fact used dramatized so mercilessly the inhumanity and evil of modern war. In some sort of crude sense which no vulgarity, no humor, no overstatement can quite extinguish, the physicists have known sin; and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

responsibility philosophy war

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

J. Robert Oppenheimer

pessimist world thinking

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

gita change world

The history of science is rich in example of the fruitfulness of bringing two sets of techniques, two sets of ideas, developed in separate contexts for the pursuit of new truth, into touch with one another.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

technique two ideas

A pragmatist is concerned with results, not reality.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

pragmatists results reality

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

J. Robert Oppenheimer

vulgarity-is war world

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

Science starts with preconception, with the common culture, and with common sense. It moves on to observation, is marked by the discovery of paradox, and is then concerned with the correction of preconception. It moves then to use these corrections for the designing of further observation and for more refined experiment. And as it moves along this course the nature of the evidence and experience that nourish it becomes more and more unfamiliar; it is not just the language that is strange [to common culture].

J. Robert Oppenheimer

discovery science moving

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

The greatest of the changes that science has brought is the acuity of change; the greatest novelty the extent of novelty.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

novelty change

I think that all things which evoke discipline: study, and our duties to men and to the commonwealth, war, and personal hardship, and even the need for subsistence, ought to be greeted by us with profound gratitude, for only through them can we attain to the least detachment; and only so can we know peace.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

gratitude men war

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

enough humanity faith

When all thermonuclear sources of energy are exhausted a sufficiently heavy star will collapse. Unless fission due to rotation, the radiation of mass, or the blowing off of mass by radiation, reduce the star's mass to the order of that of the sun, this contraction will continue indefinitely.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

stars energy order

In the material sciences these are and have been, and are most surely likely to continue to be heroic days.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

heroic has-beens materials

In some sort of crude sense, which no vulgarity, no humor, no overstatement can quite extinguish, the physicists have known sin; and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

vulgarity-is sin humor

But when you come right down to it the reason that we did this job is because it was an organic necessity. If you are a scientist you cannot stop such a thing. If you are a scientist you believe that it is good to find out how the world works; that it is good to find out what the realities are; that it is good to turn over to mankind at large the greatest possible power to control the world and to deal with it according to its lights and values.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

jobs science believe

The optimist thinks that this is the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist knows it.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.N.B.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

The peoples of this world must unite or they will perish.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

unite must will world

My childhood did not prepare me for the fact that the world is full of cruel and bitter things.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

things me childhood world