Enrico Fermi

"I cannot think of a single one, not even intelligence."

"Such a weapon goes far beyond any military objective and enters the range of very great natural catastrophes. By its very nature it cannot be confined to a military objective but becomes a weapon which in practical effect is almost one of genocide. It is clear that the use of such a weapon cannot be justified on any ethical ground which gives a human being a certain individuality and dignity even if he happens to be a resident of an enemy country... The fact that no limits exist to the destructiveness of this weapon makes its very existence and the knowledge of its construction a danger to humanity as a whole. It is necessarily an evil thing considered in any light."

"If I could remember the names of all these particles, Id be a botanist."

"If Fermi had been born a few years earlier, one could well imagine him discovering Rutherfords atomic nucleus, and then developing Bohrs theory of the hydrogen atom. If this sounds like hyperbole, anything about Fermi is likely to sound like hyperbole."

"There are two possible outcomes: if the result confirms the hypothesis, then youve made a measurement. If the result is contrary to the hypothesis, then youve made a discovery."

"He was simply unable to let things be foggy. Since they always are, this kept him pretty active."

"There is no democracy in physics. We cant say that some second-rate guy has as much right to opinion as Fermi."

"Although the problem of transmuting chemical elements into each other is much older than a satisfactory definition of the very concept of chemical element, it is well known that the first and most important step towards its solution was made only nineteen years ago by the late Lord Rutherford, who started the method of the nuclear bombardments."