Edward Teller Quotes & Sayings

I am guilty of the great crime of optimism. — Edward Teller

In our educational institutions applied science may almost be described as a "no-man's land." — Edward Teller

Could we have avoided the tragedy of Hiroshima? Could we have started the atomic age with clean hands? No one knows. No one can find out. — Edward Teller

There is no case where ignorance should be preferred to knowledge - especially if the knowledge is terrible. — Edward Teller

A state-of-the-art calculation requires 100 hours of CPU time on the state-of-the-art computer, independent of the decade. — Edward Teller

[Chemistry] laboratory work was my first challenge ... I still carry the scars of my first discovery-that test-tubes are fragile. — Edward Teller

It is often claimed that knowledge multiplies so rapidly that nobody can follow it. I believe this is incorrect. At least in science it is not true. The main purpose of science is simplicity and as we understand more things, everything is becoming simpler. This, of course, goes contrary to what everyone accepts. — Edward Teller

My experience has been in a short 77 years that in the end when you fight for a desperate cause and have good reasons to fight, you usually win. — Edward Teller

When you're certain you cannot be fooled, you become easy to fool. — Edward Teller

U.S. has lost a battle more important and greater than Pearl Harbor. — Edward Teller

Really exotic methods of propulsion ... will have to be devised to get there. How it will be done, I do not know. Whether it will be done, I am not quite certain. But I would bet it can be done. — Edward Teller

The eyes of childhood are magnifying lenses. — Edward Teller

Life improves slowly and goes wrong fast, and only catastrophe is clearly visible. — Edward Teller

No endeavor that is worthwhile is simple in prospect; if it is right, it will be simple in retrospect. — Edward Teller

On May 7, a few weeks after the accident at Three-Mile Island, I was in Washington. I was there to refute some of that propaganda that Ralph Nader, Jane Fonda and their kind are spewing to the news media in their attempt to frighten people away from nuclear power. I am 71 years old, and I was working 20 hours a day. The strain was too much. The next day, I suffered a heart attack. You might say that I was the only one whose health was affected by that reactor near Harrisburg. No, that would be wrong. It was not the reactor. It was Jane Fonda. Reactors are not dangerous. — Edward Teller

Secrecy, once accepted, becomes an addiction. — Edward Teller

Physics is, hopefully, simple. Physicists are not. — Edward Teller

Most people avoid thinking if they can, some of us are addicted to thinking, but Von Neumann actually enjoyed thinking, maybe even to the exclusion of everything else. — Edward Teller

I tried to contribute to the defeat of the Soviets. If I contributed 1%, it is 1% of something enormous. — Edward Teller

I believe in excellence. It is a basic need of every human soul. All of us can be excellent, because, fortunately, we are exceedingly diverse in our ambitions and talents. — Edward Teller

Today's science is tomorrow's technology. — Edward Teller

A fact is a simple statement that everyone believes. It is innocent unless found guilty. A hypothesis is a novel suggestion that no one wants to believe. It is guilty until found effective. — Edward Teller

One may say that predictions are dangerous particularly for the future. If the danger involved in a prediction is not incurred, no consequence follows and the uncertainty principle is not violated. — Edward Teller

Had we not pursued the hydrogen bomb, there is a very real threat that we would now all be speaking Russian. I have no regrets. — Edward Teller

Nationalism has little to contribute today except further suffering. — Edward Teller

By having simplified what is known, physicists have been led into realms which as yet are anything but simple. That at some time, they, too, will appear as simple consequences of a theory of which no one has yet dreamed is not a statement of fact.It is a statement of faith. — Edward Teller

In the theater you create a moment, but in that moment, there is a touch, a twinkle of eternity. And not just eternity, but community ... That connection is a sense of life for me. — Edward Teller

Today, nothing is unusual about a scientific discovery's being followed soon after by a technical application: The discovery of electrons led to electronics; fission led to nuclear energy. But before the 1880's, science played almost no role in the advances of technology. For example, James Watt developed the first efficient steam engine long before science established the equivalence between mechanical heat and energy. — Edward Teller

I believe in evil. It is the property of all those who are certain of truth. Despair and fanaticism are only differing manifestations of evil. — Edward Teller

The main purpose of science is simplicity and as we understand more things, everything is becoming simpler. — Edward Teller

I believe in good. It is an ephemeral and elusive quality. It is the center of my beliefs, but it cannot be strengthened by talking about it. — Edward Teller

When Columbus took off, the purpose was to improve trade relations with China. That problem has not been solved to this very day, but just look at the by-products. — Edward Teller

I think that intellectuals who end up in hell will have to read page proofs and check indexes there. — Edward Teller

Science attempts to find logic and simplicity in nature. Mathematics attempts to establish order and simplicity in human thought. — Edward Teller

I hate doubt, yet I am certain that doubt is the only way to approach anything worth believing in. — Edward Teller

Physics without mathematics is meaningless. — Edward Teller

Secrecy in science does not work. Withholding information does more damage to us than to our competitors. — Edward Teller

If to a poet a physicist may speak
Freely, as though we shared a common tongue,
For "peace in our time" I should hardly seek
By means that once proved wrong.
It seems the Muscovite
Has quite a healthy, growing appetite.
We can't be safe; at least we can be right.
Some bombs may help - perhaps a bomb-proof cellar,
But surely not the Chamberlain umbrella.
The atom is now big; the world is small.
Unfortunately, we have conquered space.
If war does come, it comes to all,
To every distant place.
Will people have the dash
That Britons had when their world seemed to crash
Before a small man with a small mustache?
You rhyme the atoms to amuse and charm us -
Your counsel should inspire, and not disarm us.

(Teller's reply to an anonymous British man's poem/message (that Americans are too belligerent), both in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists). — Edward Teller

There is a time for scientists and movie stars and those who have flown the atlantic to restrain their opinions lest they be taken more seriously than they should be. — Edward Teller

Knowing he [Bob Serber] was going to the [first atom bomb] test, I asked him how he planned to deal with the danger of rattlesnakes. He said, 'I'll take along a bottle of whiskey.' ... I ended by asking, 'What would you do about those possibilities [of what unknown phenomena might cause a nuclear explosion to propagate in the atmosphere]?' Bob replied, 'Take a second bottle of whiskey. — Edward Teller

Engineers are, by definition, people whose work is dedicated to making people's lives easier; or, as people used to say, whose work is dedicated to progress. — Edward Teller

I claim that relativity and the rest of modern physics is not complicated. It can be explained very simply. It is only unusual or, put another way, it is contrary to common sense. — Edward Teller

Two paradoxes are better than one they may even suggest a solution. — Edward Teller

If there ever was a misnomer, it is "exact science." Science has always been full of mistakes. The present day is no exception. And our mistakes are good mistakes; they require a genius to correct. Of course, we do not see our own mistakes. — Edward Teller

We must learn to live with contradictions, because they lead to deeper and more effective understanding. — Edward Teller

The science of today is the technology of tomorrow. — Edward Teller

The scientist is not responsible for the laws of nature. It is his job to find out how these laws operate. It is the scientist's job to find the ways in which these laws can serve the human will. However, it is not the scientist's job to determine whether a hydrogen bomb should be constructed, whether it should be used, or how it should be used. This responsibility rests with the American people and with their chosen representatives. — Edward Teller

Towards the end of World War II, Theodore von Karman had developed a liquid propellant research rocket at Cal Tech, which he named the Corporal...During the test in which a modified version of the Corporal had reached 80,000 feet, a general who was also observing the test asked von Karman how much higher the Corporal could go. Von Karman immediately replied, "Only to Colonel. Beyond that they don't work any more. — Edward Teller

Society's emissions of carbon dioxide may or may not turn out to have something significant to do with global warming-the jury is still out. — Edward Teller

In the history of physics, there have been three great revolutions in thought that first seemed absurd yet proved to be true. The first proposed that the earth, instead of being stationary, was moving around at a great and variable speed in a universe that is much bigger than it appears to our immediate perception. That proposal, I believe, was first made by Aristarchos two millenia ago ... Remarkably enough, the name Aristarchos in Greek means best beginning. — Edward Teller

When you come to the end of all the light you know, and it's time to step into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing that one of two things shall happen: Either you will be given something solid to stand on or you will be taught to fly. — Edward Teller

There's no system foolproof enough to defeat a sufficiently great fool. — Edward Teller

The extinction of the human race will come from its inability to EMOTIONALLY comprehend the exponential function. — Edward Teller

If anyone wants a hole in the ground, nuclear explosives can make big holes — Edward Teller

If not for me, the H-bomb would have been developed in Russia first. In the U.S., we'd now be speaking Russian. — Edward Teller

When you get to the end of all the light you know and it's time to step into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing that one of two things shall happen: either you will be given something solid to stand on, or you will be taught how to fly. — Edward Teller

No, I'm the infamous Edward Teller. — Edward Teller