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The open society, the unrestricted access to knowledge, the unplanned and uninhibited association of men for its furtherance — these are what may make a vast, complex, ever growing, ever changing, ever more specialized and expert technological world, nevertheless a world of human community.

— Robert Oppenheimer Science and the Common Understanding (1953)

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More quotes by Robert Oppenheimer

There are no secrets about the world of nature. There are secrets about the thoughts and intentions of men.

The extreme danger to mankind inherent in the proposal [to develop thermonuclear weapons] wholly outweighs any military advantage.

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

Science is not everything, but science is very beautiful.

In some sort of crude sense which no vulgarity, no humor, no overstatement can quite extinguish, the physicists have known sin; and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Robert Oppenheimer (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.