"When we came back through the trees to the house, we heared a strange sound coming through the open door. The children stopped their chatter and we all stood outside the door and listened. It was my old friend from long ago, Bach's Prelude No. 8 in E-flat minor. Superbly played. Played just the way my father used to play it. For a moment I was completely disoriented. I thought: What the devil is my father doing here in California? We stood in front of our Berkeley house and listened to that prelude. Whoever was playing it was putting into it his whole heart and soul. The sound floated up to us like a chorus of mourning from the depths, as if the spirits in the underworld were dancing to a slow pavane. We waited until the music came to an end and then walked in. There, sitting at the piano, was Edward Teller. We asked him to go on playing, but he excused himself."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Jews from the United StatesPresidential Medal of Freedom recipientsAgnostics from the United StatesPhysicists from the United StatesPhysicists from Hungary
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Freeman Dyson, Disturbing the Universe (1979), p. 92
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edward_Teller
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Edward Teller
Edward Teller (original Hungarian name Teller Ede) (15 January 1908 – 9 September 2003) was an American nuclear physicist, known as "the father of the hydrogen bomb."
39 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Edward Teller →
Related Quotes
"Secrecy in science does not work. Withholding information does more damage to us than to our competitors."
"It is not even impossible to imagine that the effects of an atomic war fought with greatly perfected weapons and push…"
"If we stay strong, then I believe we can stabilize the world and have peace based on force. Now, peace based on force…"
"I don't want to kill anybody. I am passionately opposed to killing, but I'm even more passionately fond of freedom. T…"
"Ladies and gentlemen, I am to talk to you about energy in the future. I will start by telling you why I believe that …"
"At present the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen by 2 per cent over normal. By 1970, it will be perhaps 4 pe…"
"On May 7, a few weeks after the accident at Three-Mile Island, I was in Washington. I was there to refute some of tha…"
"By having simplified what is known, physicists have been led into realms which as yet are anything but simple. That a…"
"The preservation of peace and the improvement of the lot of all people require us to have faith in the rationality of…"
"There is no case where ignorance should be preferred to knowledge — especially if the knowledge is terrible."