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Hiroshima Quotes

Browse 138 quotes about Hiroshima.

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Hiroshima Quotes

“It was as easy as breathing to go and have tea near the place where Jane Austen had so wittily scribbled and so painfully died. One of the things that causes some critics to marvel at Miss Austen is the laconic way in which, as a daughter of the epoch that saw the Napoleonic Wars, she contrives like a Greek dramatist to keep it off the stage while she concentrates on the human factor. I think this comes close to affectation on the part of some of her admirers. Captain Frederick Wentworth in Persuasion, for example, is partly of interest to the female sex because of the 'prize' loot he has extracted from his encounters with Bonaparte's navy. Still, as one born after Hiroshima I can testify that a small Hampshire township, however large the number of names of the fallen on its village-green war memorial, is more than a world away from any unpleasantness on the European mainland or the high or narrow seas that lie between. (I used to love the detail that Hampshire's 'New Forest' is so called because it was only planted for the hunt in the late eleventh century.) I remember watching with my father and brother through the fence of Stanstead House, the Sussex mansion of the Earl of Bessborough, one evening in the early 1960s, and seeing an immense golden meadow carpeted entirely by grazing rabbits. I'll never keep that quiet, or be that still, again. This was around the time of countrywide protest against the introduction of a horrible laboratory-confected disease, named 'myxomatosis,' into the warrens of old England to keep down the number of nibbling rodents. Richard Adams's lapine masterpiece Watership Down is the remarkable work that it is, not merely because it evokes the world of hedgerows and chalk-downs and streams and spinneys better than anything since The Wind in the Willows, but because it is only really possible to imagine gassing and massacre and organized cruelty on this ancient and green and gently rounded landscape if it is organized and carried out against herbivores.”

LiteratureWomenSilenceQuietEuropeEnglandCrueltyWorld War IiRabbits1960sCountrysideMansionsJane AustenLiterary CriticismHiroshimaHampshireMassacreNapoleonWind In The WillowsNapoleonic WarsMeadow11th CenturyPersuasion NovelSussexWatership DownGassingRichard AdamsTownshipsWar MemorialsEarl Of BessboroughMyxomatosisNew ForestTheatre Of Ancient Greece
Book:Hitch 22: A Memoir
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“For ten years after the atomic bomb was dropped there was so little public discussion of the bomb or of radioactivity that even the Chugoku Shinbun, the major newspaper of the city where the atomic bomb was dropped, did not have the movable type for 'atomic bomb' or 'radioactivity'. The silence continued so long because the U.S. Army Surgeons Investigation Team in the fall of 1945 had issued a mistaken statement: all people expected to die from the radiation effects of the atomic bomb had by then already died; accordingly, no further cases of physiological effects due to residual radiation would be acknowledged.”

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Author:Kenzaburō Ōe
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“Not every environment accepts the dream shaping progress you want to put across. Take a second look at what you dream about, be sure it can progress very well where you are; Hiroshima and Nagasaki are not fertile grounds for a farmer’s dream seeds. Go and relocate!”

DreamEnvironmentProgressPositionAcceptanceFood For ThoughtIsraelmore AyivorSeedsLocationFarmingFertileAcceptHiroshimaFarmSecondFarmerHiroshima And NagasakiFarmlandBig DreamEnvironsRelocateNagasakiDream SeedsRepositionFarm LandRepositioning2ndFertile GroundsSecond Look
Book:Shaping the dream
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“I can imagine you, Shun and Nozomi, having read this far, thinking 'but will making one little story into a picture really be able to express a problem so huge?' This world is made up of little stories. Those modest daily lives, those lives that may seem insignificant, they give the world shape — that's what I believe. Don't you think that presenting small stories in details is precisely the most certain way to depict huge things?”

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Book:Soul Lanterns
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“Approaching the Cenotaph again, we stop so a group of school-children can stand for an unobstructed photo by the shallow memorial pool. Each holds a paper crane in their hands, and they all look so proud. It reminds me of the class photograph from 1945. The children in today’s class also look no older than five or six, and their smiles beam just as bright. And hearing their laughter as the teacher tries to get them to settle long enough to take the photo, I recall something Mom said years after she returned from Angola: ‘No matter what language you speak or what nationality you are, tears and laughter always sound the same.”

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Book:Beautiful Shining People
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“Check your environment and be sure that it is supportive. Some environments do not support progress. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are not fertile lands for a farmer’s dream seeds. Change location.”

ChangeSupportEnvironmentProgressLandEnvironmentalFood For ThoughtIsraelmore AyivorProgressiveLocationSupportiveAssuranceFarmingFertileFertilityHiroshimaSureFarmerHiroshima And NagasakiCheckFarmlandChange PositionEnvironmental FactorsNagasakiDream Seeds
Book:Shaping the dream
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“What the diary does not reveal, for it stops too soon, is the appalling fact that from late 1945 until 1952 Japanese medical researchers were prohibited by U.S. occupation authorities from publishing scientific articles on the effects of the atomic bombs.”

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Book:Hiroshima Diary: The Journal of a Japanese Physician, August 6-September 30, 1945
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“When the Russian delegate this summer indicated the Soviet Union's interest in sending medical equipment, Dr Shigeto went right away to see the delegate and settle the matter tactfully. He is careful to steer clear of the superficial swirl of political maneuvering, but never misses any opportunity to improve the capability of the A-bomb Hospital or to enhance concretely the welfare of the patients. In that sense, he sometimes refers to himself as a 'dirty handkerchief.' That is, he serves to filter political purposes out of relief efforts so that the effect on patients is purely and concretely humane.”

PoliticalDonationHiroshimaA BombA Bomb HospitalDirty HandkerchiefDr Shigeto
Book:Hiroshima Notes
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“35. Not every environment accepts the progress you want to put across. Take a second look at what you dream about, be sure it can progress very well at where you are; Hiroshima and Nagasaki are not fertile grounds for a farmer’s dream seeds. Go and relocate!”

EnvironmentProgressPositionFood For ThoughtIsraelmore AyivorSeedsLocationFertileHiroshimaMake A ChangeMove ForwardFarmerHiroshima And NagasakiChange PositionWatch OutRelocateNagasakiDream SeedsFertile GroundsFertile Lands
Book:The Great Hand Book of Quotes
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“I returned to civilization shortly after that and went to Cornell to teach, and my first impression was a very strange one. I can't understand it any more, but I felt very strongly then. I sat in a restaurant in New York, for example, and I looked out at the buildings and I began to think, you know, about how much the radius of the Hiroshima bomb damage was and so forth... How far from here was 34th street?... All those buildings, all smashed — and so on. And I would go along and I would see people building a bridge, or they'd be making a new road, and I thought, they're crazy, they just don't understand, they don't understand. Why are they making new things? It's so useless. But, fortunately, it's been useless for almost forty years now, hasn't it? So I've been wrong about it being useless making bridges and I'm glad those other people had the sense to go ahead.”

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Author:Richard P. Feynman
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“But as the document of record – read over years by millions around the world – graphically showing what nuclear warfare truly looks like, and what atomic bombs do to humans, “Hiroshima” has played a major role in preventing nuclear war since the end of World War II. In 1946, Hersey’s story was the first truly effective, internationally heeded warning about the existential threat that nuclear arms posed to civilisation. It has since helped motivate generations of activists and leaders to prevent nuclear war, which would likely end the brief human experiment on earth. We know what atomic apocalypse would look like because John Hersey showed us. Since the release of “Hiroshima,” no leader or party could threaten nuclear action without an absolute knowledge of the horrific results of such an attack.”

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Book:Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World
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“As Japan recovered from the post-war depression, okonomiyaki became the cornerstone of Hiroshima's nascent restaurant culture. And with new variables- noodles, protein, fishy powders- added to the equation, it became an increasingly fungible concept. Half a century later it still defies easy description. Okonomi means "whatever you like," yaki means "grill," but smashed together they do little to paint a clear picture. Invariably, writers, cooks, and oko officials revert to analogies: some call it a cabbage crepe; others a savory pancake or an omelet. Guidebooks, unhelpfully, refer to it as Japanese pizza, though okonomiyaki looks and tastes nothing like pizza. Otafuku, for its part, does little to clarify the situation, comparing okonomiyaki in turn to Turkish pide, Indian chapati, and Mexican tacos. There are two overarching categories of okonomiyaki Hiroshima style, with a layer of noodles and a heavy cabbage presence, and Osaka or Kansai style, made with a base of eggs, flour, dashi, and grated nagaimo, sticky mountain yam. More than the ingredients themselves, the difference lies in the structure: whereas okonomiyaki in Hiroshima is carefully layered, a savory circle with five or six distinct layers, the ingredients in Osaka-style okonomiyaki are mixed together before cooking. The latter is so simple to cook that many restaurants let you do it yourself on table side teppans. Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki, on the other hand, is complicated enough that even the cooks who dedicate their lives to its construction still don't get it right most of the time. (Some people consider monjayaki, a runny mass of meat and vegetables popularized in Tokyo's Tsukishima district, to be part of the okonomiyaki family, but if so, it's no more than a distant cousin.) Otafuku entered the picture in 1938 as a rice vinegar manufacturer. Their original factory near Yokogawa Station burned down in the nuclear attack, but in 1946 they started making vinegar again. In 1950 Otafuku began production of Worcestershire sauce, but local cooks complained that it was too spicy and too thin, that it didn't cling to okonomiyaki, which was becoming the nutritional staple of Hiroshima life. So Otafuku used fruit- originally orange and peach, later Middle Eastern dates- to thicken and sweeten the sauce, and added the now-iconic Otafuku label with the six virtues that the chubby-cheeked lady of Otafuku, a traditional character from Japanese folklore, is supposed to represent, including a little nose for modesty, big ears for good listening, and a large forehead for wisdom.”

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Book:Rice, Noodle, Fish: Deep Travels Through Japan's Food Culture
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“Humanitarian Nuclear Physics (The Sonnet) One nuclear warhead contains 9 lbs of plutonium, Which can electrify 2000 households for a year. Yet you use that majestic power of atom as pawn, In your stoneage geopolitical games of fear. When monkeys crack the mystery of the atom, Without developing any civilized purpose, They go blind with the madness of power, Atom bombs become newage arrows and spears. Hypnotized by the mindless pursuit of "could", Apes rarely ever stop to question if they should! What good is such science without conscience, What good is a scientist without a vision for good! Either atom bombs will be obsolete as bow and arrow, Or humankind will go extinct like dinosaurs tomorrow.”

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Book:Tum Dunya Tek Millet: Greatest Country on Earth is Earth
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“One nuclear warhead contains 9 lbs of plutonium, Which can electrify 2000 households for a year. Yet you use that majestic power of atom as pawn, In your stoneage geopolitical games of fear.”

Nuclear WeaponsPeace ActivistGeopoliticsWar And PeaceHiroshimaPeace PoliticsNuclear Weapons Free WorldDefense PolicyNuclear PhysicsRadioactivity
Book:Tum Dunya Tek Millet: Greatest Country on Earth is Earth
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“We are the centuries... We have your eoliths and your mesoliths and your neoliths. We have your Babylons and your Pompeiis, your Caesars and your chromium-plated (vital-ingredient impregnated) artifacts. We have your bloody hatchets and your Hiroshimas. We march in spite of Hell, we do – Atrophy, Entropy, and Proteus vulgaris, telling bawdy jokes about a farm girl name of Eve and a traveling salesman called Lucifer. We bury your dead and their reputations. We bury you. We are the centuries. Be born then, gasp wind, screech at the surgeon’s slap, seek manhood, taste a little godhood, feel pain, give birth, struggle a little while, succumb: (Dying, leave quietly by the rear exit, please.) Generation, regeneration, again, again, as in a ritual, with blood-stained vestments and nail-torn hands, children of Merlin, chasing a gleam. Children, too, of Eve, forever building Edens – and kicking them apart in berserk fury because somehow it isn’t the same. (AGH! AGH! AGH! – an idiot screams his mindless anguish amid the rubble. But quickly! let it be inundated by the choir, chanting Alleluias at ninety decibels.)”

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Book:A Canticle For Leibowitz
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“It starts with a thwack, the sharp crack of hard plastic against a hot metal surface. When the ladle rolls over, it deposits a pale-yellow puddle of batter onto the griddle. A gentle sizzle, as the back of the ladle sparkles a mixture of eggs, flour, water, and milk across the silver surface. A crepe takes shape. Next comes cabbage, chopped thin- but not too thin- and stacked six inches high, lightly packed so hot air can flow freely and wilt the mountain down to a molehill. Crowning the cabbage comes a flurry of tastes and textures: ivory bean sprouts, golden pebbles of fried tempura batter, a few shakes of salt, and, for an extra umami punch, a drift of dried bonito powder. Finally, three strips of streaky pork belly, just enough to umbrella the cabbage in fat, plus a bit more batter to hold the whole thing together. With two metal spatulas and a gentle rocking of the wrists, the mass is inverted. The pork fat melts on contact, and the cabbage shrinks in the steam trapped under the crepe. Then things get serious. Thin wheat soba noodles, still dripping with hot water, hit the teppan, dancing like garden hoses across its hot surface, absorbing the heat of the griddle until they crisp into a bird's nest to house the cabbage and crepe. An egg with two orange yolks sizzles beside the soba, waiting for its place on top of this magnificent heap. Everything comes together: cabbage and crepe at the base, bean sprouts and pork belly in the center, soba and fried egg parked on top, a geologic construction of carbs and crunch, protein and chew, all framed with the black and white of thickened Worcestershire and a zigzag of mayonnaise. This is okonomiyaki, the second most famous thing that ever happened to Hiroshima.”

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Book:Rice, Noodle, Fish: Deep Travels Through Japan's Food Culture
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“Historically, the Germans had a habit of associating the names of objects with the sounds they made. After bell makers-turned-cannon-makers learned that by closing off the mouth of the cannon before lighting the fuse, the entire cannon could be made to explode, the device they invented became known as the 'bum' (for boom!). In keeping with this tradition, the first one-thousand-pound bomb was dubbed 'ein laussen bum' (meaning, "a loud boom"). After the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, they called the fission device 'ein grossen laussen bum' (or, "a big loud boom"). The next obvious step was the fusion, or H-bomb, which was pronounced 'ein grossen laussen bum all ist kaput!”

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Book:Dust
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“Russians in their hour of victory really hoped that their long isolation had ended; that their terrible war losses had brought for them the friendship of America and Britain, with long generations of peace. Week by week I saw that hope die in their faces. The change began with our atom-bomb on Hiroshima. Fear came back into eyes that had hardly yet seen peace. After the fear came the thought: Why had America slain a quarter of a million people in two Japanese cities, when Japan was already suing for peace?”

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Book:The Stalin era
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“Now Christianity sounded good at first to the naive convert. Love, peace and charity - what's wrong with that? I'll tell you what's wrong - a series of unprecedented horrors perpetrated by so-called Christians: The Inquisition, the Conquistadores, the American Indian wars, slavery, Hiroshima and the present-day Bible Belt.”

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Author:William S. Burroughs
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“I did not know much history when I became a bombardier in the U.S. Air Force in World War II. Only after the War did I see that we, like the Nazis, had committed atrocities... Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden, my own bombing missions. And when I studied history after the War, I learned from reading on my own, not from my university classes, about the history of U.S. expansion and imperialism.”

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Author:Howard Zinn
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“The Atomic Age was born in secrecy, and for two decades after Hiroshima, the high priests of the cult of the atom concealed vital information about the risks to human health posed by radiation. Dr. Alice Stewart, an audacious and insightful medical researcher, was one of the first experts to alert the world to the dangers of low-level radiation.”

WorldFirstsHumansTwoAgeBornLevelsRiskInformationDangerLowsDecadesMedicalExpertsPriestsInsightfulAtomsRadiationDrsCultSecrecyConcealedResearchersAtomic BombHiroshimaAudaciousLow LevelHuman Health
Author:Stewart Udall
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“I was born in the middle of the Second World War when the United States dropped their atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, when millions of people were dying in concentration camps, when half the planet were colonies that belonged to empires. The word feminism didn't exist. And in my lifetime I have seen all these things improved, changed. We are more connected, more informed. We can fight against stuff together in ways we couldn't before.”

PeopleWorldWayWarStatesTogetherFightingStuffBornUnitedHalfMillionsUnited StatesFeminismMiddleDyingChangedPlanetsLifetimeConnectedWar Of The WorldsBombsEmpiresConcentrationCampsColonySecond World WarAtomic BombHiroshimaConcentration CampHiroshima And Nagasaki
Author:Isabel Allende
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“I recently got back from Hiroshima and it was fascinating to me how the Japanese accommodate this paradox. We were talking about this word aware, which on the page looks like "aware," which speaks to both the pain and the beauty of our lives. Being there, what I perceived was that this is a sorrow that is not a grief that one forgets or recovers from, but it is a burning, searing illumination of love for the delicacy and strength of our relations.”

LooksPainSpeakForgetGriefTalkingOur LivesSorrowPagesRelationBurningFascinatingParadoxIlluminationBeing ThereAccommodateDelicacyHiroshima
Author:Terry Tempest Williams
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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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“Because my parents were American missionaries who sent me to public schools in rural Japan, I had to confront Hiroshima as a child. I was in the fourth grade - the only American in my class - when our teacher wrote the words "America" and "Atomic Bomb" in white chalk on the blackboard. All forty Japanese children turned around to stare at me. My country had done something unforgivable and I had to take responsibility for it, all by myself. I desperately wanted to dig a hole under my desk, to escape my classmates' mute disbelief and never have to face them again.”

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Author:Linda Hoaglund
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