Almost all of the governments have agreed that they will not acquire nuclear weapons and that they will allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to monitor their commercial and research nuclear power operations to ensure that nuclear materials - highly enriched uranium and plutonium - are not diverted to use in weapons.
John BurroughsHere's how the court put it, and all judges agreed to this. The court said: "There exists and obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations under nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control."
John Burroughs....success in walking is not to let your right foot know what your left foot doeth. Your heart must furnish such music that in keeping time to it your feet will carry you around the globe without knowing it.
John BurroughsI seldom go into a natural history museum without feeling as if I were attending a funeral.
John BurroughsIn what bold relief stand out the lives of all walkers of the snow! The snow is a great tell-tale, and blabs as effectually as it obliterates. I go into the woods, and know all that has happened. I cross the fields, and if only a mouse has visited his neighbor, the fact is chronicled.
John BurroughsOne resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this: ‘To rise above little things’.
John BurroughsHow many thorns of human nature - hard, sharp, lifeless protuberances that tear and wound us, narrow prejudices, bristling conceits that repel and disgust us - are arrested developments, calcified tendencies, buds of promise that should have lifted a branch up into the sunny day with fruit; and flowers to delight the heart of men, but now all grown hard, petrified, for want of culture and a congenial soil and climate.
John BurroughsThe court was unable to rule on all circumstances in which nuclear weapons might be used, and it said in view of the problems, the risks posed by nuclear weapons, and in view of the lack of certainty of the law in all circumstances, the best course is fulfilling the obligation of good faith negotiations of nuclear disarmament contained in the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
John BurroughsThe countries outside the Non-Proliferation Treaty also are bound by that obligation [ Article Six of the treaty] according to, at least it's a strong implication of, a 1996 opinion of the International Court of Justice.
John BurroughsFew persons realize how much of their happiness, such as it is, is dependent upon their work.
John BurroughsTo the scientist Nature is a storehouse of facts, laws, processes; to the artist she is a storehouse of pictures; to the poet she is a storehouse of images, fancies, a source of inspiration; to the moralist she is a storehouse of precepts and parables; to all she may be a source of knowledge and joy.
John BurroughsI am in love with this world. It has been my home. It has been my point of outlook into the universe. I have never bruised myself against it nor tried to use it ignobly.
John BurroughsThe fisherman has a harmless, preoccupied look; he is a kind of vagrant, that nothing fears. He blends himself with the trees and the shadows. All his approaches are gentle and indirect. He times himself to the meandering, soliloquizing stream; he addresses himself to it as a lover to his mistress; he woos it and stays with it till he knows its hidden secrets. Where it deepens his purpose deepens; where it is shallow he is indifferent. He knows how to interpret its every glance and dimple; its beauty haunts him for days.
John BurroughsThere is a condition or circumstance that has a greater bearing upon the happiness of life than any other. What is it? Something to do; some congenial work. Take away the occupation of all people and what a wretched world it would be.
John BurroughsSomewhat by historical happenstance the five permanent members of the UN Security Council - United States, Britain, France, Russia, and China - also were the original five countries to have nuclear weapons.
John BurroughsTo find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter... to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird's nest or a wildflower in spring - these are some of the rewards of the simple life.
John BurroughsThere is hardly a man on earth who will take advice unless he is certain that it is positively bad.
John BurroughsThe only countries that are outside of [ Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty] are Israel, Pakistan, India, and North Korea withdrew in the last few years.
John BurroughsSo the idea about how detonation of a nuclear weapon might happen vary, you know - some people are especially concerned about terrorists getting their hands on nuclear weapons and using them. Some people are worried that there might be a nuclear war between India and Pakistan. Some think the Middle East, were Israel already has nuclear weapons and where other countries may be interested at some point and acquiring them, might be a flash point.
John BurroughsMy group, the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, was one of the principle organizers. So, there was this campaign to support the United Nations General Assembly in asking the International Court of Justice for an advisory opinion on the legality of threat or use of nuclear weapons.
John BurroughsWhen I look up into the starry heavens at night and reflect upon what it is I really see there, I am constrained to say, ´there is no god´.
John BurroughsScience sees the process of evolution from the outside, as one might a train of cars going by, and resolves it into the physical and mechanical elements, without getting any nearer the reason of its going by, or the point of its departure or destination.
John BurroughsThe United States says "We're complying. We're following the disarmament obligation. Look at the quantitative reductions that are taking place." But, since '96, there really hasn't been progress on specific commitments that have been made. Perhaps most disturbing is this: that the United States and France in particular, since 1996, have expanded the range of circumstances under which they might use - they say they might use - nuclear weapons.
John BurroughsThe budget for nuclear forces in the United States is on the order of $25 billion or so. That includes warheads, delivery systems, command and control; does not include environmental clean-up, which is another maybe $10 billion or so. So that's about 5% of the U.S. military budget.
John BurroughsNature exists for man no more than she does for monkeys, and is as regardless of his life or pleasure or success as she is of the fleas. Her waves will drown him, her fire burn him, and her earth devour him, her storms and lightning smite him, as if he were only a dog.
John BurroughsNature will not be conquered, but gives herself freely to her true lover - to him who revels with her, bathes in her seas, sails her rivers, camps in her woods, and with no mercenary ends, accepts all.
John BurroughsOne can only learn his powers of action by action, and his powers of thought by thinking
John BurroughsI always feel at home where the sugar maple grows.... glorious in autumn, a fountain of coolness in summer, sugar in its veins, gold in its foliage, warmth in its fibers, and health in it the year round.
John BurroughsThe pleasure and value of every walk or journey we take may be doubled to us by carefully noting down the impressions it makes upon us.
John BurroughsHow much there is in books that one does not want to know, that it would be a mere weariness and burden to the spirit to know.
John BurroughsIn winter the stars seem to have rekindled their fires, the moon achieves a fuller triumph, and the heavens wear a look of a more exalted simplicity.
John BurroughsWhat a severe yet master artist old Winter is... No longer the canvas and the pigments, but the marble and the chisel.
John BurroughsThe rocks are not so close akin to us as the soil; they are one more remove from us; but they lie back of all, and are the final source of all. ... Time, geologic time, looks out at us from the rocks as from no other objects in the landscape.
John BurroughsEspecially in the case of India and Pakistan, it's very clear that significant parts of the elites in both countries view having nuclear weapons as a ticket to prestige.
John BurroughsIt doesn't seem to be that huge a commitment that would create, you know, some kind of really powerful constituency. But the history has been for the United States and Russia especially that nuclear weapons have kind of become part of the identity of the countries.
John BurroughsThe Universe is a pretty big place... And the one thing I know about nature is it hates to waste anything. So I guess I'd say if it is just us, an awful lot of space is going to waste. The earth is not alone, it is not like a single apple on a tree; there are many apples on the tree, and there are many trees in the orchard.
John BurroughsThe rocks have a history; gray and weatherworn, they are veterans of many battles; they have most of them marched in the ranks of vast stone brigades during the ice age; they have been torn from the hills, recruited from the mountaintops, and marshaled on the plains and in the valleys; and now the elemental war is over, there they lie waging a gentle but incessant warfare with time and slowly, oh, so slowly, yielding to its attacks!
John Burroughs