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“He rarely gave orders, and instead managed to communicate his desires,” as the physicist Eugene Wigner recalled, “very easily and naturally, with just his eyes, his two hands, and a half-lighted pipe.” Bethe remembered that Oppie “never dictated what should be done. He brought out the best in us, like a good host with his guests.” Robert Wilson felt similarly: “In his presence, I became more intelligent, more vocal, more intense, more prescient, and more poetic myself.” (Bird & Sherwin, 2005, p. 218)