Quote

We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism.

J. Robert Oppenheimer

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

J. Robert Oppenheimer
Age: 62 †
Born: 1904
Born: April 22
Died: 1967
Died: February 18
Art Collector
Engineer
Nuclear Physicist
Theoretical Physicist
University Teacher
New York City
New York
Julius Robert Oppenheimer
J. Robert Oppenheimer
Group
Groups
Wise
Power
Without
Scrutiny
Enough
Operate
Believe
Adequate
Men
Criticism

More quotes by J. Robert Oppenheimer

Image
The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true.
J. Robert Oppenheimer
Image
We may be likened to two scorpions in a bottle, each capable of killing the other, but only at the risk of his own life.
J. Robert Oppenheimer
Image
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
Image
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
Image
If we must live with a perpetual sense that the world and the men in it are greater than we and too much for us, let it be the measure of our virtue that we know this and seek no comfort.
J. Robert Oppenheimer
Image
Taken as a story of human achievement, and human blindness, the discoveries in the sciences are among the great epics.
J. Robert Oppenheimer
Image
There is something irreversible about acquiring knowledge and the simulation of the search for it differs in a most profound way from the reality.
J. Robert Oppenheimer
Image
Truth, not a pet, is man's best friend.
J. Robert Oppenheimer
Image
Pragmatism is an intellectually safe but ultimately sterile philosophy.
J. Robert Oppenheimer
Image
To the confusion of our enemies.
J. Robert Oppenheimer
Image
The theory of our modern technic shows that nothing is as practical as theory.
J. Robert Oppenheimer
Image
The physicists have known sin and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose.
J. Robert Oppenheimer
Image
There are no secrets about the world of nature. There are secrets about the thoughts and intentions of men.
J. Robert Oppenheimer
Image
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
Image
Any man whose errors take ten years to correct is quite a man.
J. Robert Oppenheimer
Image
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
Image
The people of this world must unite or they will perish.
J. Robert Oppenheimer
Image
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
Image
I can't think that it would be terrible of me to say - and it is occasionally true - that I need physics more than friends.
J. Robert Oppenheimer
Image
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