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Atom Bomb Quotes

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Atom Bomb Quotes

“Beyond aspects of pain that are physical, thought Oppenheimer, sickness or injury or privation, beyond the so-called obvious, suffering can be a work of art. It can be made of buried and rising things, helpless and undiscovered, song of frustrated want, silence after desire. It can be the test of the self falling short, constrained, distorted, disturbed or rebuffed, the vacuum left by longing, call without an answer.”

InspirationalArtSufferingGriefLongingResilienceAtom BombOppenheimer
Book:Oh Pure and Radiant Heart
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“A millenarian fire burned in Oppenheimer’s spirit, fueled by his pride as a world-historical individual, by his fear that the natural force he loosed upon the world would escape all human control, and by a pure-hearted longing to ensure that his discovery of the devastation latent in the elemental substance of the world would serve concord rather than the ultimate discord, perpetual peace rather than permanent self-destruction.”

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Author:Algis Valiunas
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“If we do not stop these mar-makers not,...it will soon be too late. We are the only nation that can halt this crusade. It might be too late in America, but it isn't too late here. Without British support the whole scheme would collapse. For that reason the future of all nations depends upon the policy which is decided in this House. More than that, the final position of Britain in the world is being decided. If we support these anti-Communist crusades through the world as we have supported it in Greece, then our good name and existence will be threatened by the hatred of all free-thinking men. We cannot suppress all desire in Europe and Asia for social change by branding it communism from Russia and persecuting its supporters. Social change doesn't have to come from Russia, whatever the Foreign Office or the Americans say. It is a product of the miserable conditions under which the majority of the earth's population exist. There are fighters for social change in every land, here as well as anywhere.... We Socialists are among them. That is the reason for our predominance in the House to-day. The very men that we try to suppress in other countries are asking for far less liberty than we enjoy here, far less social change than we Socialists hope to initiate in Great Britain. Are we going to betray these men by labelling them Communists and crushing them wherever we find them until we have launched ourselves at Russia herself in a war that will wipe this island off the face of the earth? The American imperialists say that this is the American Century. ARe we to sacrifice ourselves for that great ideal, or are we to stand beside the people of Europe and Asia and other lands who seek independence, economic stability, self-determination, and the right to conduct their own affairs? Are we going to partake in an anti-Red campaign when we ourselves are Reds? ...... Some among us might think that there is political expediency in following this anti-Russian crusade without really getting enmeshed in it, creating a Third Force in Europe of their friends, a balancing force for power politics. In that you have the real policy of our Government to-day. But how can we avoid final involvement? Our American vanguard will stop at nothing. They hold their atom bomb aloft with nervous fingers. It has become their talisman and their faith. It is their new weapon of anti-Communism, a more efficient Belsen and Maidenek. Its first usage was morally anti-Russian. It was used to end Japan quickly so that Russia would play no part in the final settlement with that country. No doubt they would have used it on Russia already if they could be certain that Russian did not have an equal or better atomic weapon. That terrible uncertainty goads them into fiercer political and economic activity against the world's grim defenders of great liberties. In that you have the heart of this American imperial desperation. They cannot defeat the people of Europe and Asia with the atomic bomb alone. They cannot win unless we lend them our name and our support and our political cunning. To-day they have British support, in policy as well as in international councils where the decisions of peace and security are being made. With our support America is undermining every international conference with its anti-Russian politics.”

Atom Bomb1940sAnti Russian Policy
Book:The Diplomat
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“The most striking impression was that of an overwhelming bright light. I had seen under similar conditions the explosion of a large amount—100 tons—of normal explosives in the April test, and I was flabbergasted by the new spectacle. We saw the whole sky flash with unbelievable brightness in spite of the very dark glasses we wore. Our eyes were accommodated to darkness, and thus even if the sudden light had been only normal daylight it would have appeared to us much brighter than usual, but we know from measurements that the flash of the bomb was many times brighter than the sun. In a fraction of a second, at our distance, one received enough light to produce a sunburn. I was near Fermi at the time of the explosion, but I do not remember what we said, if anything. I believe that for a moment I thought the explosion might set fire to the atmosphere and thus finish the earth, even though I knew that this was not possible.”

LightPowerDestructionPhysicsNuclear BombBrightAtom BombNobel LaureateExplosionAtomNukeEnrico Fermi
Book:Enrico Fermi, Physicist
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“So Roy's tears were understandable when he remembered tying animals to all those stakes. Such a cruel experiment had been performed on animals, of course, on sheep and pigs and cattle and horses and monkeys and ducks and chickens and geese, but surely not on a zoo such as Roy described. To hear him tell it, he had tethered peacocks and snow leopards and gorillas and crocodiles and albatrosses to the stakes. In his big brain, Bikini became the exact reverse of Noah's ark. Two of every sort of animal had been brought there in order to be atom-bombed.”

Atom Bomb
Book:Galápagos
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“As the tail on our back disappeared as we no longer had any use for it, nuclear weapons will also disappear once we realize, we no longer have any need for them. But no matter how much we daydream, it will never happen as some sort of grand geopolitical gesture of international collaboration - somebody has to take the first step - one nuclear-capable state has to take that first leap of bold faith and naive trust! The question is, who will it be? The first nuclear nation to abandon its nuclear weapons, will be the First Peacemaking Nation of Earth - and their head of state, the First Peacemaker.”

World PeacePeace ActivistPeacemakerPeacekeepingAtom BombNuclear DisarmamentNuclear ProliferationNuclear Weapons Free WorldMake Love Not WarPeace Advocate
Book:Visvavictor: Kanima Akiyor Kainat
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“As their conversation turned philosophical, Oppenheimer stressed the word 'responsibility'. And when Morgan suggested he was using the word almost in a religious sense Oppenheimer agreed it was a 'secular devise for using a religious notion without attaching it to a transcendent being. I like to use the word 'ethical' here. I am more explicit about ethical questions now than ever before although these were very strong with me when I was working on the bomb. Now I don't know how to describe my life without using some word like responsibility to characterize it. A word that has to do with choice and action and the tension in which choices can be resolved. I'm not talking about knowledge but about being limited by what you can do. There is no meaningful responsibility without power. It may be only power over what you do yourself but increased knowledge, increased wealth... leisure are all increasing the domain in which responsibility is conceivable. After this soliloquy Morgan wrote "Oppenheimer turned his palms up, the long slender fingers including his listener in his conclusion 'You and I' he said 'Neither of us is rich but as far as responsibility goes both of us are in a position right now to alleviate the most awful agony in people at the starvation level.' This was only a different way of saying what he had learned from reading Proust forty years earlier in Corsica... that indifference to the sufferings one causes is the terrible and permanent form of cruelty. Far from being indifferent, Robert was acutely aware of the suffering he had caused others in his life and yet he would not allow himself to succumb to guilt. He would accept responsibility. He had never tried to deny his responsibility but since the security hearing he nevertheless no longer seemed to have the capacity or motivation to fight against the cruelty of indifference. and in that sense, Robby had been right- they achieved their goal, they killed him.”

ResponsibilityGuiltCrueltyIndifferenceAtom BombOppenheimer
Book:American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
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“The decision to use the atom bomb on Japanese cities, and the consequent buildup of enormous nuclear arsenals, was made by governments, on the basis of political and military perceptions.”

MadeUseGovernmentPoliticalDecisionCitiesMilitaryPerceptionBasesNuclearEnormousBombsAtomsArsenalAtom Bomb
Book:A Quest for Global Peace: Rotblat and Ikeda on War, Ethics and the Nuclear Threat
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“Welcome baby it's your turn to live they're laying for you chicken pox whooping cough smallpox malaria TB heart disease cancer and so on unemployment hunger and so on train wrecks bus accidents plane crashes on-the-job injuries earthquakes floods droughts and so on heartbreak alcoholism and so on nightsticks prisons doors and so on they're laying for you the atom bomb and so on welcome baby it's your turn to live they're laying for you socialism communism and so on.”

HeartJobsTurnsDoorsBabyDiseasePrisonTrainHungerCancerAccidentsSocialismWelcomeCommunismPlanesBombsInjuryChickensBusAtomsCrashFloodUnemploymentAlcoholismWrecksEarthquakesDroughtHeart DiseaseMalariaAtom BombSmallpoxPlane CrashesPoxTrain WrecksWhooping Cough
Author:Naz?m Hikmet
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“In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.”

PeopleWritingFacesPoliticalLanguagePartySpeechArgumentIndiaAimBritishDefenseOur TimeBombsJapanSquaresAtomsBrutalSheerPolitical PartiesDroppingBeggingCloudyEuphemismAtom BombDeportationContinuanceVaguenessPolitical SpeechesPolitical LanguageBritish RuleSpeech And WritingBritish Rule In India
Book:Orwell and Politics
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“In this age of space flight, when we use the modern tools of science to advance into new regions of human activity, the Bible... remains in every way an up-to-date book. Our knowledge and use of the laws of nature that enable us to fly to the Moon also enable us to destroy our home planet with the atom bomb. Science itself does not address the question whether we should use the power at our disposal for good or for evil. The guidelines of what we ought to do are furnished in the moral law of God.”

WayShouldHumansDoeBookUseHomeAgeChristianLawEvilSpaceMoralModernPlanetsOughtActivityMoonBibleToolsRemainsFlightBombsAddressesRegionsAtomsLaws Of NatureHuman ActivityGuidelinesMoral LawAtom BombUp To DateSpace Flight
Author:Wernher von Braun
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“Knowing he [Bob Serber] was going to the [first atom bomb] test, I asked him how he planned to deal with the danger of rattlesnakes. He said, 'I'll take along a bottle of whiskey.' … I ended by asking, 'What would you do about those possibilities [of what unknown phenomena might cause a nuclear explosion to propagate in the atmosphere]?' Bob replied, 'Take a second bottle of whiskey.'”

FirstsSaidMightCausesDealsKnowingDangerPossibilityTestsAskingNuclearAtmosphereBombsBottlesAtomsBobExplosionsWhiskeyAtomic BombAtom BombRattlesnakes
Author:Edward Teller
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“The most fearful phenomenon of these midcentury years is not the atom bomb; atomic energy does have its constructive possibilities.... The most fearful event of these times is the colossal expansion of the government of the United States and the constant increase of executive power within the government.”

YearsDoeStatesGovernmentAmericaEnergyUnitedUnited StatesEventsPossibilityIncreaseConstantBombsExecutivesPhenomenonAtomsFearfulExpansionConstructiveColossalAtom BombAtomic EnergyExecutive Power
Author:Wheeler McMillen
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“The technological overflow from scientific research has brought scientific research this bad name about carrying an irresponsibility and an alienation from God - because scientific research has led to things like the atom bomb, it's led to problems with depletion of ozone in the Earth's atmosphere, or at least it's revealed those problems.”

ProblemEarthNamesResearchAtmosphereBombsAtomsTechnologicalAlienationScientific ResearchOverflowIrresponsibilityAtom BombOzone
Author:George Coyne
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“What is superstition , but misguided, unobjective science? And when it comes down to that, is it to be wondered if people grasp at superstition in this rotten, hate-filled, half-doomed world of today? Lord knows, I'd welcome the blackest of black magic, if it could do anything to stave off the atom bomb.”

PeopleIfsKnowsWorldTodayHateBlackHalfLordMagicFilledWelcomeBombsAtomsSuperstitionsDoomedRottenMisguidedAtom BombBlack Magic
Book:Conjure Wife
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“It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender... In being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages.”

FirstsWarUseAgeDarkCommonOpinionReadyMaterialsWeaponsStandardsSurrenderJapanEthicalDefeatedAssistanceAdoptedDark AgesBarbariansAtomic BombHiroshimaAtom BombHiroshima And NagasakiAtomic WarEthical StandardsAtomic WeaponsDropping Bombs
Author:William D. Leahy
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“Had we adopted non-violence as the weapon of the strong, because we realised that it was more effective than any other weapon, in fact the mightiest force in the world, we would have made use of its full potency and not have discarded it as soon as the fight against the British was over or we were in a position to wield conventional weapons. But as I have already said, we adopted it out of our helplessness. If we had the atom bomb, we would have used it against the British.”

IfsWorldMadeSaidFactsUseUsedFightingStrongForceViolencePositionWeaponsBritishBombsAtomsConventionalAdoptedRealisedHelplessnessNon ViolenceDiscardedPotencyAtom Bomb
Author:Mahatma Gandhi
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“Fear kills, want to kill. Fear is destructive. Love is creative energy. When you love you would like to create - you may like to sing a song, paint, write poetry, but you would not take a bayonet or an atom bomb and go rushing off madly to kill people who are absolutely unknown to you, who have done nothing, who are as unknown to you as you are to them.”

PeopleWantWritingMayDoneSongEnergyLove IsCreativeLove YouPaintBombsDestructiveAtomsRushingCreative EnergyAtom BombBayonets
Author:Rajneesh
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“New needs need new techniques. And the modern artists have found new ways and new means of making their statements... the modern painter cannot express this age, the airplane, the atom bomb, the radio, in the old forms of the Renaissance or of any other past culture.”

WayNeedsMeanAgePastFormArtistCultureFoundModernRadioTechniqueStatementsPainterBombsAtomsAirplaneNew WaysRenaissanceAeroplanesModern ArtAtom BombModern AgeSplitting The Atom
Book:Jackson Pollock
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“It is to be remembered that all art is magical in origin - music, sculpture, writing, painting - and by magical I mean intended to produce very definite results. Paintings were originally formulae to make what is painted happen. Art is not an end in itself, any more than Einstein's matter-into-energy formulae is an end in itself. Like all formulae, art was originally FUNCTIONAL, intended to make things happen, the way an atom bomb happens from Einstein's formulae.”

WayWritingMeanArtEndsMatterHappensEnergyResultsProducePaintingArt IsThings HappenRememberedBombsAtomsDefiniteSculptureMake Things HappenAtom Bomb
Author:William S. Burroughs
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