"Once again, the world is faced with a transcendent conflict between those who love life and those who love death both for themselves and their enemies. Which is why we tremble. Upon witnessing the first atomic bomb explode at the Trinity site at Alamogordo, J. Robert Oppenheimer recited a verse from the Hindu scripture "Bhagavad Gita": "Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds." We tremble because for the first time in history, nihilism will soon be armed with the ultimate weapons of annihilation. For the first time in history, the nihilist will have the means to match his ends. Which is why the war declared upon us on September 11 is the most urgent not only of our lives, but in the life of civilization itself."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Pulitzer Prize winnersColumnists from the United StatesPolitical authors from the United StatesPhysicians from New York CityPsychiatrists from the United States
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_Krauthammer
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Charles Krauthammer
Charles Krauthammer (March 13, 1950 - June 21, 2018) was an American Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and political commentator. He wrote a weekly column syndicated to more than 400 newspapers worldwide, including The Washington Post. He was also a contributing editor to the Weekly Standard, a panelist on Fox News's Special Report with Bret Baier, and a panelist on the PBS news program Inside Washington.
83 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Charles Krauthammer →
Related Quotes
"Late in the game, Blue's king was under savage attack by Kasparov. Any human player under such assault by a world cha…"
"There is no comparing the brutality and cynicism of today’s pop culture with that of forty years ago: from High Noon …"
"In science, modesty and genius do not coexist well together. (In Washington, modesty and cleverness don’t.) Einstein …"
"Courage is not a quality one normally associates with mathematicians. Yet it should apply to people who work in their…"
"Communism always had sympathetic Westerners who amounted to a fifth column, including communist parties and intellect…"
"There's something in the Western psyche, especially the Western liberal, pluralistic psyche, that finds it impossible…"
"Every two years the American politics industry fills the airwaves with the most virulent, scurrilous, wall-to-wall ch…"
"Israel is different. In Israel the great temptation of modernity — assimilation — simply does not exist. Israel is th…"
"Highfalutin moral principles are impossible guides to foreign policy. At worst, they reflect hypocrisy; at best, extr…"
"In the Middle Ages people took potions for their ailments. In the 19th century they took snake oil. Citizens of today…"