William Griffin

“As their conversation turned philosophical, Oppenheimer stressed the word 'responsibility'. And when Morgan suggested he was using the word almost in a religious sense Oppenheimer agreed it was a 'secular devise for using a religious notion without attaching it to a transcendent being. I like to use the word 'ethical' here. I am more explicit about ethical questions now than ever before although these were very strong with me when I was working on the bomb. Now I don't know how to describe my life without using some word like responsibility to characterize it. A word that has to do with choice and action and the tension in which choices can be resolved. I'm not talking about knowledge but about being limited by what you can do. There is no meaningful responsibility without power. It may be only power over what you do yourself but increased knowledge, increased wealth... leisure are all increasing the domain in which responsibility is conceivable. After this soliloquy Morgan wrote "Oppenheimer turned his palms up, the long slender fingers including his listener in his conclusion 'You and I' he said 'Neither of us is rich but as far as responsibility goes both of us are in a position right now to alleviate the most awful agony in people at the starvation level.' This was only a different way of saying what he had learned from reading Proust forty years earlier in Corsica... that indifference to the sufferings one causes is the terrible and permanent form of cruelty. Far from being indifferent, Robert was acutely aware of the suffering he had caused others in his life and yet he would not allow himself to succumb to guilt. He would accept responsibility. He had never tried to deny his responsibility but since the security hearing he nevertheless no longer seemed to have the capacity or motivation to fight against the cruelty of indifference. and in that sense, Robby had been right- they achieved their goal, they killed him.”
― Kai Bird, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer

“Science is the human adventure of accepting uncertainty, exploring ways of thinking about the world, and being ready to overturn any and all certainties we have possessed to this point. This is among the most beautiful of human adventures.”
― Carlo Rovelli, Anaximander: And the Birth of Science

“Maturity, one discovers, has everything to do with the acceptance of ‘not knowing.”
― Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves

“To survive and flourish in such a world, you will need a lot of mental flexibility and great reserves of emotional balance. You will have to repeatedly let go of some of what you know best, and feel at home with the unknown.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century