NO-NUKES QUOTES

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* "The nuclear arms race is like two people sitting in a pool of gasoline spending all their time making matches." -- John Denver

* "We must unite to make nuclear weapons a horror of the past." -- Michael Douglas I have met with political leaders, legislators, and diplomats, seeking the next steps to press in reducing and eliminating the nuclear threat in this century. I have participated in public coalitions developing programmes for action to combat the global rash of small arms. All are trying and making a difference. -- Michael Douglas

* "Human beings should only use technology which if the worst case happens, it leads to an acceptable damage. Definitely nuclear energy is not in that category. I want an industrial world where people are allowed to make errors. Because human creativity has to do with being allowed to make errors. We want an error-friendly environment." -- Hans-Peter Dürr

* I do not know with what weapons World War 3 will be fought, but World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones. -- Albert Einstein * Since I do not forsee that atomic energy is to be a great boon for a long time, I have to say that for the present it is a menace. Perhaps it is well that it should be. It may intimidate the human race into bringing order into its international affairs, which, without the presence of fear, it would not do. -- Albert Einstein

Through the release of atomic energy, our generation has brought into the world the most revolutionary force since prehistoric man's discovery of fire. This basic force of the universe cannot be fitted into the outmoded concept of narrow nationalisms. For there is no secret and there is no defense; there is no possibility of control except through the aroused understanding and insistence of the peoples of the world. We scientists recognise our inescapable responsibility to carry to our fellow citizens an understanding of atomic energy and its implication for society. In this lies our only security and our only hope - we believe that an informed citizenry will act for life and not for death.
-- Albert Einstein

“[Not achieving a nuclear test ban] would have to be classed as the greatest disappointment of any administration of any decade, of any time and of any party.” -- President Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961 * The United States strongly seeks a lasting agreement for the discontinuance of nuclear weapons tests. We believe that this would be an important step toward reduction of international tensions and would open the way to further agreement on substantial measures of disarmament. -- President Dwight D. Eisenhower

* It is time for the rest of the world to join ... in demanding that ALL the nuclear weapons states -including Israel, India and Pakistan, but above all the US and Russia - negotiate concrete steps on a definite time - table toward the global, inspected abolition of nuclear weapons. -- Daniel Ellsberg ”It is urgent to prevent new U.S. aggression. The time is now for the world to say ‘no’ to U.S. threats of air attack against Iran, and to the very notion of a nuclear first-use ‘option’ by America or any other nation.” -- Daniel Ellsberg

My activities, for which I gratefully accept this Award, are today what they have been for over thirty-five years and will be for the rest of my life: to counter governmental secrecy about the nuclear arms race that threatens the survival of life on earth; and to help build a world movement that will prevent a first use since Nagasaki of nuclear explosions, prevent or end interventions that could lead to such an event, and bring about a world free of nuclear weapons.
-- Daniel Ellsberg

Instead of starting a new nuclear arms race, now is the time to reclaim our Nation's position of leadership on nuclear nonproliferation efforts.
-- Dianne Feinstein

* We have been led to believe that we have come a long way toward world nuclear disarmament. But that is not the case. Our government is not doing all that it could. We must urge our leaders to fulfill the obligations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The United States must assume world leadership to end once and for all the threat of nuclear war. It is our moral responsibility. ~ Harrison Ford

* "It is really a moral and ethical question. Should we be moving the already insane and expensive global arms race into space or should the U.S. be doing everything it can now, before it is too late, to create international agreements to keep space for peace?" ~ Bruce Gagnon

“The role of the U.S. in the new world corporate order is going to be to export security. That means endless wars and weapons in space. The Pentagon will send our kids off to foreign lands to suppress opposition to corporate globalization. How will we ever end America’s addiction to war and violence as long as our communities are dependent on military spending for jobs? We must work to convert the military industrial complex to sustainable technologies like windpower, solar, and mass transit.”
~ Bruce Gagnon

* We should put away the militaristic outlook. The U.S. should start talking about disarmament, nuclear disarmament, of the region. ~ Akbar Ganji

* The fact that lately some circles, not less powerful by their small size, have been actively promoting certain theories, as dangerous as they are illusory, of a "limited", "winnable" or "protracted" nuclear war, as well as their obsession of "nuclear superiority", make it advisable to bear always in mind that the immediate goal of all States, as was expressly declared in the Final Document of the Special Assembly of 1978, "is that of the elimination of the danger of a nuclear war". ~ Alfonso García Robles

If disarmament, as I have taken the liberty to suggest, were in the future to become the decisive criterion for the evaluation by the Nobel Committee of the activities for peace, it would constitute, just as the Campaign which I have mentioned, another invaluable element to convince all nuclear powers, including those which have been more reluctant up to now, of the necessity to respect the "vital interests" of all peoples and to become fully aware of the profound truth of the following conclusion which the United Nations approved by unanimity four years ago: "Mankind is confronted with a choice: we must halt the arms race and proceed to disarmament or face annihilation".
~ Alfonso García Robles

“It is my view that there is no sensible military use for nuclear weapons, whether “strategic” weapons, “tactical” weapons, “theatre” weapons, weapons at sea or weapons in space…”
-- Admiral Noel Gayler, U.S. Navy (ret.)

* "Licensing a nuclear power plant is in my view, licensing random premeditated murder. First of all, when you license a plant, you know what you're doing--so it's premeditated. You can't say, "I didn't know." Second, the evidence on radiation-producing cancer is beyond doubt. I've worked fifteen years on it [as of 1982], and so have many others. It is not a question any more: radiation produces cancer, and the evidence is good all the way down to the lowest doses." -- John Gofman

"Ionizing radiation may well be the most important single cause of cancer, birth defects and genetic disorders... The stakes for human health are very, very high in radiation matters. It is essential that people take no chance that conflict-of-interest is producing radiation databases which cannot be trusted."
-- John Gofman

* It is my firm belief that the infinite and uncontrollable fury of nuclear weapons should never be held in the hands of any mere mortal ever again, for any reason. ~ Mikhail Gorbachev

* Nuclear weapons elimination will make all states and their people safer. It is time to assert our right to live in a nuclear weapons free world. -- Jonathan Granoff

* Nuclear weapons have forced us to consider whether we will be the last generation. They challenge the moral dimension of our humanity. Our technological abilities must not outstrip our moral insights, rendering us less than fully human. For in this age, acting without reliance on the gifts of law, morality and wisdom will be lethal. What right do we have to place all life on the planet at risk in the service of a human construction, the state, when it is presently legally required and within our political means to globally eliminate all nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons elimination will make all states and their people safer. It is time to assert our right to live in a nuclear weapons free world.
-- Jonathan Granoff

“The nuclear weapon is obsolete. I want to get rid of them all.”
-- General Charles A. Horner, US Air Force (ret).

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 -- Hubert Humphrey

We invite people working for peace to span generations and national boundaries, and gather together to communicate. Let us firmly join hands and foster an even stronger network for nuclear abolition and peace. -- Iccho Itoh * The time has come for those nations that rely on the force of nuclear armaments to respectfully heed the voices of peace-loving people, not least the atomic bomb survivors, to strive in good faith for nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, and to advance towards the complete abolishment of all such weapons. -- Iccho Itoh

 

Hiroshima Day - August 6

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