Oppenheimer (2023) quotes

View Quote David Hill: The views I have to express are my own, but I believe that much I have to say will help indicate why most of the scientists in this country would prefer to see Mr. Strauss completely out of the government.

View Quote Edward Condon: Why would we move out to the middle of the desert for two to three years?
Leslie Groves: Why? How about because this is the most important **** thing to ever happen in the history of the world!

View Quote Enrico Fermi: [referring to the hydrogen bomb] It's a weapon of attack with no defensive value.

View Quote George Kistiakowsky: [referring to the Trinity Gadget] A month of my salary against ten bucks says it lights.

View Quote Haakon Chevalier: Robert, you see beyond the world we live in. There’s a price to be paid for that.

View Quote Harry S. Truman: [to Oppenheimer] You think anyone in Hiroshima or Nagasaki gives a shit who built the bomb? They care who dropped it. I did. Hiroshima isn’t about you.

View Quote Henry Stimson: [referring to the firebombing of Tokyo] I worry about an America where we do these things and no one protests.

View Quote J. Robert Oppenheimer: Since when are you British?
Klaus Fuchs: Since Hitler told me I wasn't German.

View Quote J. Robert Oppenheimer: You're talking about turning theory into a practical weapons system faster than the Nazis.
Leslie Groves: Who have a twelve month head start.
J. Robert Oppenheimer: Eighteen.
Leslie Groves: How could you possibly know that?
J. Robert Oppenheimer: Our fast neutron research took six months. The man they've undoubtedly put in charge will have made that leap instantly.
Leslie Groves: Who do you think they put in charge?
J. Robert Oppenheimer: Werner Heisenberg. He has the most intuitive understanding of atomic structure I've ever seen.
Leslie Groves: You know his work?
J. Robert Oppenheimer: I know him. Just like I know Walter Bothe, von Weizsäcker, Diebner... In a straight race, the Germans win. We've got one hope.
Leslie Groves: Which is?
J. Robert Oppenheimer: Antisemitism.
Leslie Groves: What?
J. Robert Oppenheimer: Hitler called quantum physics "Jewish science", said it right to Einstein's face. Our one hope is that Hitler is so, so blinded by hate that he's denied Heisenberg proper resources, because it'll take vast resources. Our nation's best scientists working together. Right now they're scattered.
Leslie Groves: Which gives us compartmentalization.
J. Robert Oppenheimer: All minds have to see the whole task to contribute efficiently. Poor security may cost us the race. Inefficiency will. The Germans know more than us anyway.
Leslie Groves: The Russians don't.
J. Robert Oppenheimer: Remind me, who are we at war with?
Leslie Groves: Somebody with your past doesn't want to be seen downplaying the importance of security from our communist allies.
J. Robert Oppenheimer: Point taken, but no.
Leslie Groves: You don't get to say no to me.
J. Robert Oppenheimer: It's my job to say no to you when you're wrong.
Leslie Groves: So you have the job now?
J. Robert Oppenheimer: I'm considering it.
Leslie Groves: I'm starting to see where you got your reputation. My favorite response? "Oppenheimer couldn't run a hamburger stand."
J. Robert Oppenheimer: I couldn't. But I can run the Manhattan Project.

View Quote Jean Tatlock: Don’t alienate the only people in the world who understand what you do. One day you might need them.

View Quote Leslie Groves: What did Fermi mean by “Atmospheric ignition”?
J. Robert Oppenheimer: Well we had a moment where it looked like the chain reaction from an atomic device might never stop. Setting fire to the atmosphere.
Leslie Groves: Why is Fermi still taking side bets on it?
J. Robert Oppenheimer: Call it, “gallows humour”.
Leslie Groves: Wait, are we saying that there's a chance that when we push that button we destroy the world?
J. Robert Oppenheimer: Nothing in our research over three years supports that conclusion. Except it’s the most remote possibility.
Leslie Groves: How remote?
J. Robert Oppenheimer: Chances are near zero.
Leslie Groves: Near zero?
J. Robert Oppenheimer: What do you want from theory alone?
Leslie Groves: Zero would be nice.
J. Robert Oppenheimer: [Looks at his watch] In exactly 1 hour, 58 minutes, we’ll know.

View Quote Leslie Groves: Why don’t you have a Nobel Prize?
J. Robert Oppenheimer: Why aren’t you a General?
Leslie Groves: They’re making me one for this.
J. Robert Oppenheimer: Perhaps I’ll have the same luck.
Leslie Groves: A Nobel Prize for making a bomb?
J. Robert Oppenheimer: Alfred Nobel invented dynamite.

View Quote Lilli Hornig: It’s no longer the enemy who are the greatest threat to mankind - it’s us. Our work.

View Quote Opening Text: [Greek Proverb] "Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to man. For this he was chained to a rock and tortured for eternity."

View Quote Phillip Morrison: But how do we justify using this weapon on human beings?