We hunger for nobility: the rare words and acts that harmonize simplicity and truth.
J. Robert OppenheimerIf 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 OppenheimerThe greatest of the changes that science has brought is the acuity of change; the greatest novelty the extent of novelty.
J. Robert OppenheimerTo try to be happy is to try to build a machine with no other specification than that it shall run noiselessly.
J. Robert OppenheimerIf 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 OppenheimerBoth the man of science and the man of art live always at the edge of mystery, surrounded by it. Both, as a measure of their creation, have always had to do with the harmonization of what is new with what is familiar, with the balance between novelty and synthesis, with the struggle to make partial order in total chaos.... This cannot be an easy life.
J. Robert Oppenheimer