Quotes on Nuclear Weapons

Above all else, we need a reaffirmation of political commitment at the highest levels to reducing the dangers that arise both from existing nuclear weapons and from further proliferation.

The existence of nuclear weapons presents a clear and present danger to life on Earth. Nuclear arms cannot bolster the security of any nation because they represent a threat to the security of the human race. These incredibly destructive weapons are an affront to our common humanity, and the tens of billions of dollars that are dedicated to their development and maintenance should be used instead to alleviate human need and suffering

To nourish children and raise them against odds is in any time, any place, more valuable than to fix bolts in cars or design nuclear weapons.

The release of atomic power has changed everything except our way of thinking ... the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker. (1945)

Nuclear weapons and TV have simply intensified the consequences of our tendencies, upped the stakes.

The challenge of preventing any further proliferation of nuclear weapons is just such a trial in the quest for world peace, one that cannot be achieved if we are defeated by a sense of helplessness. The crucial element is to ensure that any struggle against evil is rooted firmly in a consciousness of the unity of the human family, something only gained through the mastery of our own inner contradictions.

So far as I can see the atomic bomb has deadened the finest feeling that has sustained mankind for ages.

The United States will do what we must to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

They assert that their program is purely peaceful. . . . We want them to demonstrate clearly in the actions they propose that they have truly abandoned any nuclear weapons ambition.

A world without nuclear weapons may be a dream but you cannot base a sure defence on dreams. Without far greater trust and confidence between East and West than exists at present, a world without nuclear weapons would be less stable and more dangerous for all of us.

The indefinite combination of human fallibility and nuclear weapons will lead to the destruction of nations.

We have a situation where we are rich really as a world overall, and yet we have the capacity to destroy ourselves, either through nuclear weapons or through environmental degradation, and we allow the life chances of hundreds of millions of people to be destroyed because we haven't found the will to tackle it

The last few centuries have seen the world freed from several scourges-slavery, for example; death by torture for heretics; and, most recently, smallpox. I am optimistic enough to believe that the next scourge to disappear will be large-scale warfare-killed by the existence and nonuse of nuclear weapons.

When I was in the White House, I was confronted with the challenge of the Cold War. Both the Soviet Union and I had 30,000 nuclear weapons that could destroy the entire earth and I had to maintain the peace.

In our new age of terrifying, lethal gadgets, which supplanted so swiftly the old one, the first great aggressive war, if it should come, will be launched by suicidal little madmen pressing an electronic button. Such a war will not last long and none will ever follow it. There will be no conquerors and no conquests, but only the charred bones of the dead on and uninhabited planet.

So long as nuclear weapons continue to exist, so will the temptation to threaten others with overwhelming military force.

For the first time in the history of mankind, one generation literally has the power to destroy the past, the present and the future, the power to bring time to an end.