Oppenheimer (film)

"Oh-penheimer, Op-penheimer; whatever way you say it, they know I'm Jewish."

"[in response to being asked if he met Werner Heisenberg after leaving Europe] No, not in person no - but you might say that our paths crossed."

"Is light made up of particles or waves? Quantum mechanics says it's both. How can it be both? It can't. It's paradoxical, and yet, it works."

"[[w:Ernest_Lawrence|[Ernest] Lawrence]], you embrace the revolution in physics, can’t you see it everywhere else? Picasso, Stravinsky, Freud, Marx..."

"I’m committed to thinking freely about how to improve our world. Why limit yourself to one dogma?"

"We’re all simple souls, I guess."

"[to Lawrence] It’s not your people they’re herding into camps. It’s mine."

"I don't know if we can be trusted with such a weapon, but I know the Nazis can't."

"[to Groves] You didn’t hire me despite my left-wing past, you hired me because of it. So you could control me."

"We’re theorists. Yes? We imagine a future, and our imaginings horrify us. They won’t fear it until they understand it, and they won’t understand it until they’ve used it. When the world learns the terrible secret of Los Alamos, our work here will ensure a peace mankind has never seen -- a peace based on the kind of international cooperation that Roosevelt always envisaged."

"[to Szilard, referring to the atomic bomb] Just because we’re building it doesn’t mean we get to decide how it’s used."

"Don't underestimate the psychological impact of an atomic explosion. A pillar of fire ten thousand feet tall, deadly neutron effects for a mile in all directions from one single device, dropped from a barely noticeable B-29. The atomic bomb will be a terrible revelation of divine power."

"Once it’s used, nuclear war, maybe all war, becomes unthinkable."

"Is anyone ever going to tell the truth about what's happening here?"

"America and Russia may be likened to two scorpions in a bottle, each capable of killing the other, but only at the risk of his own life."

"If atomic weapons are to be added to the arsenals of a warring world, then the day will come when people will curse the name of Los Alamos."

"[to his counsel, Lloyd Garrison] Only a fool or an adolescent presumes to know someone else’s relationship, and you’re neither, Lloyd. Kitty and I, we’re grown-ups. We’ve walked through fire together, and she’ll do fine."

"The world is changing. Reforming. This is your moment."

"You sit there, day after day, letting them pick our lives to pieces. Why won’t you fight?"

"[to Oppenheimer] You don’t get to commit the sin, then have us all feel sorry for you that it had consequences."

"The truly vindictive are as patient as saints."

"[referring to who is behind Oppenheimer's "security hearing"] Wake up! It is Strauss! It’s always been Strauss, and you know it. Why won’t you fight!?"

"[to Oppenheimer, referring to Teller] You shook his fucking hand?!"

"You think because you let them tar and feather you that the world will forgive you? They won't."

"Genius is no guarantee of wisdom."

"You don’t know scientists like I do, counselor. They resent anyone who questions their judgement, especially if you’re not one of them."

"[referring to Los Alamos] Robert built that damn place. He was founder, mayor, sheriff all rolled into one."

"[referring to the hydrogen bomb] If it could put us ahead again, the President of the United States needs to know about it. And if there’s a possibility that the Russians know about it from a spy at Los Alamos, then we’ve gotta get going."

"[referring to Oppenheimer] A lot of scientists blame me, but how was I supposed to protect him?"

"Survival in Washington is about knowing how to get things done."

"Amateurs seek the sun. Get eaten. Power stays in the shadows."

"Oppenheimer wanted to own the atomic bomb. He wanted to be the man who moved the Earth. He talks about putting the nuclear genie back in the bottle. Well I'm here to tell you that I know J. Robert Oppenheimer, and if he could do it all over, he'd do it all the same. You know he's never once said that he regrets Hiroshima? He'd do it all over. Why? Because it made him the most important man who ever lived!"

"He wanted the glorious insincere guilt of the self-important to wear like a fuckin' crown, and I gave it to him."

"J. Robert Oppenheimer the martyr. I gave him exactly what he wanted. To be remembered for Trinity. Not Hiroshima, not Nagasaki. He should be thanking me."

"I did what was right for this country. They don’t want me in the Cabinet Room? Maybe they should just invite Oppenheimer instead."

"Quantum physics is not a step forward; it is a new way to understand reality. Einstein's opened the door, [and] now we are seeing a world inside of our world; a world of energy and paradox that not everyone can accept."

"Algebra is like sheet music. The important thing isn't, "can you read music," it's "can you hear it.""

"The power you are about to reveal will forever outlive the Nazis, and the world is not prepared."

"We have to make the politicians understand: this isn’t a new weapon, it’s a new world. I’ll be out there, doing what I can, but you.. you’re an American Prometheus - the man who gave them the power to destroy themselves - and they’ll respect that. Then, the work really begins."

"[to Oppenheimer] You're the great improviser, but this you can't do in your head."

"You drop a bomb, it falls on the just and unjust. I don't wish for the culmination for three centuries of physics to be a weapon of mass destruction."

"[to Oppenheimer] When you speak, they hear a prophet. When Strauss speaks, they hear themselves...a prophet can’t be wrong. Not once."

"[to Oppenheimer] Take off that ridiculous uniform. You’re a scientist."

"An H-bomb would be one thousand times the power of an A-bomb. The only intended target would be the largest cities. It’s a weapon of mass genocide."

"You drown in ten feet of water or ten thousand, what’s the difference? We can already drown Russia, and they know it."

"Why go through all this against a man who’s accomplished what Dr. Oppenheimer has? Look at his record; we have an A-bomb and a whole series of it, and we have a whole series of Super bombs. What more do you want? Mermaids?"

"So here we are, lost in your quantum world of probabilities and needing certainty."

"[to Oppenheimer] About the only thing you and I share is a disdain for mathematics."

"You’ve served America well, and if this is the reward she has to offer, then perhaps you should turn your back on her."

"Members of the security board, the so-called derogatory information in your indictment of me cannot be fully understood except in the context of my life and my work."