Frederick Soddy Quotes

Quotes about:

• The ruling passion of the age is to convert wealth into debt in order to
  derive a permanent future income from it - to convert wealth that perishes
  into debt that endures, debt that does not rot, costs nothing to maintain,
  and brings in perennial interest.

  Frederick Soddy

  Passion, Order, Age

  48 Copy quote

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

  Frederick Soddy

  Banking, Today, Profit

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• Chemistry has been termed by the physicist as the messy part of physics, but that is no reason why the physicists should be permitted to make a mess of chemistry when they invade it.

  Frederick Soddy

  Science, Invasion, Reason Why

  American Journal of Physics, Vol. 14, (p. 248), 1946.

  27 Copy quote

• An inexplicable fact is infinitely preferable to an incomprehensible mystery.

  Frederick Soddy

  Facts, Mystery, Inexplicable

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• The fact remains that, if the supply of energy failed, modern civilization would come to an end as abruptly as does the music of an organ deprived of wind.

  Frederick Soddy

  Failure, Future, Science

  Frederick Soddy (1912). “Matter and energy”

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• I believe that there have been civilisations in the past that were familiar with atomic energy, and that by misusing it they were totally destroyed.

  Frederick Soddy

  Believe, Past, Energy

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• An honest money system is the only alternative.

  Frederick Soddy

  Alternatives, Honest

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

  Frederick Soddy

  Beautiful, Scary, Mood

  14 Copy quote

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

  Frederick Soddy

  Ignorance, Men, Sin

  Frederick Soddy's speech at the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm, www.nobelprize.org. December 10, 1922.

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• The real value of science is in the getting, and those who have tasted the pleasure of discovery alone know what science is. A problem solved is dead. A world without problems to be solved would be devoid of science.

  Frederick Soddy

  Real, Knowledge, Science

  Frederick Soddy (1912). “Matter and energy”

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• The laws expressing the relations between energy and matter are, however, not solely of importance in pure science. They necessarily come first in order ... in the whole record of human experience, and they control, in the last resort, the rise or fall of political systems, the freedom or bondage of nations, the movements of commerce and industry, the origin of wealth and poverty, and the general physical welfare of the race.

  Frederick Soddy

  Freedom, Fall, Science

  8 Copy quote

• The history of man is dominated by, and reflects, the amount of available energy

  Frederick Soddy

  Men, Energy, Available

  Frederick Soddy (1920). “Science and Life: Aberdeen Addresses”

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• It is probable that all heavy matter possesses - latent and bound up with the structure of the atom - a similar quantity of energy to that possessed by radium. If it could be tapped and controlled what an agent it would be in changing the world's destiny! The man who put his hand on the lever by which a parsimonious nature regulates so jealously the output of this store of energy would possess a weapon by which he could destroy the earth if he chose.

  Frederick Soddy

  Destiny, Men, Hands

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• The dropping of the Atomic Bomb is a very deep problem... Instead of commemorating Hiroshima we should celebrate... man's triumph over the problem [of transmutation], and not its first misuse by politicians and military authorities.

  Frederick Soddy

  Military, Science, Men

  "In Commemoration of Professor Frederick Soddy" by New Europe Group, 6-7, 1956.

  10 Copy quote

• The energy available for each individual man is his income, and the philosophy which can teach him to be content with penury should be capable of teaching him also the uses of wealth.

  Frederick Soddy

  Philosophy, Teaching, Science

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• Heat energy of uniform temperature [is] the ultimate fate of all energy. The power of sunlight and coal, electric power, water power, winds and tides do the work of the world, and in the end all unite to hasten the merry molecular dance.

  Frederick Soddy

  Hard Work, Fate, Science

  Frederick Soddy (1912). “Matter and energy”

  9 Copy quote

• On our plane knowledge and ignorance are the immemorial adversaries.

  Frederick Soddy

  Ignorance, Planes, Adversaries

  Frederick Soddy's speech at the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm, www.nobelprize.org. December 10, 1922.

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• In so far as such developments utilise the natural energy running to waste, as in water power, they may be accounted as pure gain. But in so far as they consume the fuel resources of the globe they are very different. The one is like spending the interest on a legacy, and the other is like spending the legacy itself. ... [There is] a still hardly recognised coming energy problem.

  Frederick Soddy

  Running, Nature, Science

  7 Copy quote

• There has been no discovery like it in the history of man. It puts into man's hands the key to using the fundamental energy of the universe.

  Frederick Soddy

  Science, Men, Discovery

  7 Copy quote

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

  Frederick Soddy

  Sublime, Indifference, Environment

  Frederick Soddy (2004). “The Interpretation of Radium and the Structure of the Atom”, p.27, Courier Corporation

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• Innumerable entirely new compounds have been produced in the last century. The artificial dye-stuffs, prepared from materials occurring in coal-tar, make the natural colours blush. Saccharin, which is hundreds of times sweeter than sugar, is a purely artificial substance. New explosives, drugs, alloys, photographic substances, essences, scents, solvents, and detergents are being poured out in a continuous stream.

  Frederick Soddy

  Science, Essence, Drug

  Frederick Soddy (1912). “Matter and energy”

  4 Copy quote

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

  Frederick Soddy

  Respect, Men, Influence

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• 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

  Real, Past, Example

  Frederick Soddy (2004). “The Interpretation of Radium and the Structure of the Atom”, p.182, Courier Corporation

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• [The human control of atomic energy could] virtually provide anyone who wanted it with a private sun of his own.

  Frederick Soddy

  Energy, Want, Sun

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• Mankind has always drawn from outside sources of energy. This island was the first to harness coal and steam. But our present sources stand in the ratio of a million to one, compared with any previous sources. The release of atomic energy will change the whole structure of society.

  Frederick Soddy

  Islands, Coal, Atomic Energy

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