It is a profound and necessary truth that the deep things in science are not found because they are useful; they are found because it was possible to find them.
If atomic bombs are to be added as new weapons to the arsenals of a warring world, or to the arsenals of nations preparing for war, then the time will come when mankind will curse the names of Los Alamos and of Hiroshima.
Science is not everything, but science is very beautiful.
Both the man of science and the man of action live always at the edge of mystery, surrounded by it.
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.
If the radiance of a thousand sunsWere to burst at once into the skyThat would be like the splendour of the Mighty One…I am become Death,The shatterer of worlds.[Quoted from the Bhagavad Gita after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.]
There must be no barriers to freedom of inquiry. There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors.