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

J. Robert Oppenheimer

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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
Without
Scrutiny
Enough
Operate
Believe
Adequate
Men
Criticism
Group
Groups
Wise
Power

More quotes by J. Robert Oppenheimer

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The greatest of the changes that science has brought is the acuity of change the greatest novelty the extent of novelty.
J. Robert Oppenheimer
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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
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Both the man of science and the man of action live always at the edge of mystery, surrounded by it.
J. Robert Oppenheimer
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'It worked.' (said after witnessing the first atomic detonation).
J. Robert Oppenheimer
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Taken as a story of human achievement, and human blindness, the discoveries in the sciences are among the great epics.
J. Robert Oppenheimer
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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
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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
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Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds. (quoting the Bhagavad-Gita after witnessing the first Nuclear explosion.)
J. Robert Oppenheimer
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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
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The people of this world must unite or they will perish.
J. Robert Oppenheimer
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If we ask, for instance, whether the position of the electron remains the same, we must say 'no' if we ask whether the electron's position changes with time, we must say 'no' if we ask whether the electron is at rest, we must say 'no' if we ask whether it is in motion, we must say 'no'.
J. Robert Oppenheimer
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Any man whose errors take ten years to correct is quite a man.
J. Robert Oppenheimer
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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
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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
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The most beautiful philosophical song existing in any known tongue.
J. Robert Oppenheimer
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Truth, not a pet, is man's best friend.
J. Robert Oppenheimer
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The theory of our modern technic shows that nothing is as practical as theory.
J. Robert Oppenheimer
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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
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Sometimes the answer to fear does not lie in trying to explain away the causes, sometimes the answer lies in courage.
J. Robert Oppenheimer
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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