Atomic Weapons Quotes

“Oppenheimer, haunted by his leading role in the first use of atomic weapons, understood only one aspect of prudence. His longing not to do evil himself blinded him to the need to ward off the evil of others. This painfully knotted man hoped with one swipe of his moral sword to rid himself of the impossible tangle and to be clear and simple for once in his life. But being Oppenheimer could never be as easy as that.

For Oppenheimer embodied two of the highest human types, the theoretical man described by Aristotle as god-like for living in the mind, among changeless truths, and the paragon of Machiavellian virtue, god-like in commanding the power of life and death over other men. No theoretical man before Oppenheimer had known such lordly power. In certain high moments he approached that Aristotelian theoretical purity which lives for the joys of knowing the world, whatever it might prove to be; in another light he thrilled at that Machiavellian power and its attendant renown; in contrary moods he reviled himself for the suffering he brought into the world, and ached to renounce his distinction and to be merely another man among men. Perhaps no theoretical man can be equal to such a burden: to feel knowledge as power when one’s mind reshapes the world irrevocably, to see the light of truth as the agent of some dark majesty, is not grace but ordeal. Oppenheimer’s agony tore him open from top to bottom.”
― Algis Valiunas

“The latest element to turn up is called plutonium--which is Disney with a touch of mineral water. The word uranium had a mighty sound, a solemn sound, an awful sound. Plutonium is a belly laugh. Plutonium, incidentally, is not known in the stars; the stars are too high-minded. Plutonium is a mouthwash used by Mandrake. Plutonium is just something belonging to the comical race of people who started their first atomic fire under a football stadium.”
― E.B. White, The Wild Flag: Editorials from the New Yorker on Federal World Government and Other Matters

“People are shopping these days. The stores are crowded. Buyers are intent but not gay. The news of the atomic bomb came as a terrible shock to everybody, and the easiest way to take your mind off it is to buy things.”
― E.B. White, The Wild Flag: Editorials from the New Yorker on Federal World Government and Other Matters

“The only condition more appalling, less practical, than world government is the lack of it in this atomic age. Most of the scientists who produced the bomb admit that. Nationalism and the split atom cannot coexist in the planet.”
― E.B. White, The Wild Flag: Editorials from the New Yorker on Federal World Government and Other Matters

“We know from the destructive weapons of the atomic age that either we permanently end war or it will most certainly permanently end us.”
― Saul D. Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals