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Pragmatism is an intellectually safe but ultimately sterile philosophy.

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
Ultimately
Safe
Philosophy
Pragmatism
Sterile
Intellectually

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Any man whose errors take ten years to correct is quite a man.
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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.
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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.
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To try to be happy is to try to build a machine with no other specification than that it shall run noiselessly.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true.
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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.
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Both the man of science and the man of action live always at the edge of mystery, surrounded by it.
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Taken as a story of human achievement, and human blindness, the discoveries in the sciences are among the great epics.
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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.
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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
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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
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'It worked.' (said after witnessing the first atomic detonation).
J. Robert Oppenheimer
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Truth, not a pet, is man's best friend.
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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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.
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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.
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