Robert Oppenheimer: Possibility

Robert Oppenheimer was American theoretical physicist and professor of physics. Explore interesting quotes on possibility.
Robert Oppenheimer: 50   quotes 23   likes

“The Optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds, the Pessimist fears it is true.”

Robert Oppenheimer

This is derived from a statement of James Branch Cabell, in The Silver Stallion (1926) : The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.
Misattributed
Variant: The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true.

World , Fear , Thinking

“But when you come right down to it the reason that we did this job is because it was an organic necessity. If you are a scientist you cannot stop such a thing. If you are a scientist you believe that it is good to find out how the world works; that it is good to find out what the realities are; that it is good to turn over to mankind at large the greatest possible power to control the world and to deal with it according to its lights and its values.”

Robert Oppenheimer

Speech to the Association of Los Alamos Scientists (2 November 1945) http://www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/ManhattanProject/OppyFarewell.shtml

World , Reality , Light

“It is perfectly obvious that the whole world is going to hell. The only possible chance that it might not is that we do not attempt to prevent it from doing so.”

Robert Oppenheimer

As quoted in Play to Live (1982) by Alan Watts

World , Hell , Chance

“It is a profound and necessary truth that the deep things in science are not found because they are useful; they are found because it was possible to find them.”

Robert Oppenheimer

As quoted in "Why Curiosity Driven Research?" by Robert V. Moody (17 February 1995) http://www.math.mun.ca/~edgar/moody.html

Truth , Science