We hunger for nobility: the rare words and acts that harmonize simplicity and truth.

In the material sciences these are and have been, and are most surely likely to continue to be heroic days.

The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true.

We know too much for one man to know too much.

The physicists have known sin; and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose.

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.

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.