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

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

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

'It worked.' (said after witnessing the first atomic detonation).

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.

Taken as a story of human achievement, and human blindness, the discoveries in the sciences are among the great epics.

We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita; Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and, to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says, "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.