Frederick Soddy quotes

Frederick Soddy was a British radiochemist who made pioneering contributions to the understanding of radioactivity and isotopes. His work led to the identification and explanation of isotopes, fundamentally changing the study of chemistry and physics. He received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his groundbreaking discoveries and research. Here are 19 of his quotes:

There is something sublime about its aloofness from and its indifference to its external environment.

Frederick Soddy

With all our mastery over the powers of Nature we have adhered to the view that the struggle for existence is a permanent and necessary condition of life.

Frederick Soddy

Some of the beliefs and legends bequethed to us by Antquity are so universally and firmly established that we have become accustomed to consider them as being almost as ancient as humanity itself. Nevertheless we are tempted to inquire how far the fact that some of these beliefs and legends have so many features in common is due to chance, and wether the similarity between them may not point to the exestience of an ancient, totally unknown and unsuspected civilization of which all other traces have disappeared.

Frederick Soddy

The whole profit of the issuance of money has provided the capital of the great banking business as it exists today.

Frederick Soddy

An honest money system is the only alternative.

Frederick Soddy

Nature is in austere mood, even terrifying, withal majestically beautiful.

Frederick Soddy

Man cannot influence in this respect the atomic forces of Nature.

Frederick Soddy

On our plane knowledge and ignorance are the immemorial adversaries.

Frederick Soddy

Scientific men can hardly escape the charge of ignorance with regard to the precise effect of the impact of modern science upon the mode of living of the people and upon their civilisation.

Frederick Soddy

The pure air and dazzling snow belong to things beyond the reach of all personal feeling, almost beyond the reach of life. Yet such things are a part of our life, neither the least noble nor the most terrible.

Frederick Soddy

But what sin is to the moralist and crime to the jurist so to the scientific man is ignorance.

Frederick Soddy

It is curious to reflect, for example, upon the remarkable legend of the Philosopher's Stone, one of the oldest and most universal beliefs, the origin of which, however far back we penetrate into the records of the past, we do not probably trace its real source.

Frederick Soddy

Four circles to the kissing come, The smaller are the benter. The bend is just the inverse of The distance from the centre. Though their intrigue left Euclid dumb There's now no need for rule of thumb. Since zero bend's a dead straight line And concave bends have minus sign, The sum of squares of all four bends Is half the square of their sum.

Frederick Soddy

As scientific men we have all, no doubt, felt that our fellow men have become more and more satisfying as fish have taken up their work which has been put often to base uses, which must lead to disaster. But what sin is to the moralist and crime to the jurist so to the scientific man is ignorance. On our plane knowledge and ignorance are the immemorial adversaries. Scientific men can hardly escape the charge of ignorance with regard to the precise effect of the impact of modern science upon the mode of living of the people and upon their civilisation. For them, such a charge is worse than that of crime.

Frederick Soddy

To-day it appears as though it may well be altogether abolished in the future as it has to some extent been mitigated in the past by the unceasing, and as it now appears, unlimited ascent of man to knowledge, and through knowledge to physical power and dominion over Nature.

Frederick Soddy

In the first place, the preparation of the Nobel lecture which I am to give has shown me, even more clearly than I knew before, how many others share with me, often, indeed, have anticipated me, in the discoveries for which you have awarded me the prize.

Frederick Soddy

There is nothing left now for us but to get ever deeper and deeper into debt to the banking system in order to provide the increasing amounts of money the nation requires for its expansion and growth.

Frederick Soddy