Source: 1950s, Human Society in Ethics and Politics (1954), p. 47
Context: Suppose atomic bombs had reduced the population of the world to one brother and one sister, should they let the human race die out? I do not know the answer, but I do not think it can be in the affirmative merely on the ground that incest is wicked.
Sermon preached at Mill-hill Chapel, Leeds on 28th August 1870.
"President Truman Did Not Understand" http://www.peak.org/~danneng/decision/usnews.html in U.S. News & World Report (15 August 1960)
Variant: If the Germans had dropped atomic bombs on cities instead of us, we would have defined the dropping of atomic bombs on cities as a war crime, and we would have sentenced the Germans who were guilty of this crime to death at Nuremberg and hanged them.
As quoted in The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb (1996) by Dennis Wainstock, p. 122
Context: Suppose Germany had developed two bombs before we had any bombs. And suppose Germany had dropped one bomb, say, on Rochester and the other on Buffalo, and then having run out of bombs she would have lost the war. Can anyone doubt that we would then have defined the dropping of atomic bombs on cities as a war crime, and that we would have sentenced the Germans who were guilty of this crime to death at Nuremberg and hanged them?
But, again, don't misunderstand me. The only conclusion we can draw is that governments acting in a crisis are guided by questions of expediency, and moral considerations are given very little weight, and that America is no different from any other nation in this respect.
“If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One Marry Your Sister?”
Title of story about the incest taboo and social pathologies in the anthology Dangerous Visions (1967) by Harlan Ellison.
“One has to look out for engineers-they begin with sewing machines and end up with the atomic bomb.”
"Only Then Shall We Find Courage", New York Times Magazine (23 June 1946).
1940s
“We are one, we are all brothers and sisters, but the people of the world do not know this.”
Donovan: "We are all one shining Being" (1998)
Context: We are one, we are all brothers and sisters, but the people of the world do not know this. So this was the teaching, but how do you teach it? As young people, John Lennon, George Harrison, myself, Carlos Santana and other spiritual seekers in pop music, we wanted to know the answer but we found a question: How do you convince the rest of the western world that they are ill, they are mentally ill, that they have a sickness and that they have lost the way? How do you teach that? You cannot teach that in the normal sense. You have to encourage a spiritual call, so we devoted ourselves to making songs which would have a spiritual call inside of them, hoping to awaken an awareness with this music. And other people in the arts felt the same...
Responding to President George W. Bush remarks on Iran, November 21, 2007 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-chavez-bush/chavez-says-bush-belongs-in-asylum-for-ww3-comment-idUSL2062324220071120
2007
“The news today about "Atomic bombs" is so horrifying one is stunned.”
No. 102: From a letter to his son Christopher Tolkien (9 August, 1945)
The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (1981)
Context: The news today about "Atomic bombs" is so horrifying one is stunned. The utter folly of these lunatic physicists to consent to do such work for war-purposes: calmly plotting the destruction of the world! Such explosives in men's hands, while their moral and intellectual status is declining, is about as useful as giving out firearms to all inmates of a gaol and then saying that you hope "this will ensure peace". But one good thing may arise out of it, I suppose, if the write-ups are not overheated: Japan ought to cave in. Well we're in God's hands. But He does not look kindly on Babel-builders.
