Frederick Soddy Quotes

I do not want chemistry to degenerate into a religion; I do not want the chemist to believe in the existence of atoms as the Christian believes in the existence of Christ in the communion wafer.

Chemistry is the melodies you can play on vibrating strings.

I think chemists always think they know more than they know, because nature has a lot of possible pathways it can try.

I have been so electrically occupied of late that I feel as if hungry for a little chemistry: but then the conviction crosses my mind that these things hang together under one law & that the more haste we make onwards each in his own path the sooner we shall arrive, and meet each other, at that state of knowledge of natural causes from which all varieties of effects may be understood & enjoyed.

Chemistry ought to be not for chemists alone.

I think chemistry is about not acting, but reacting, and not talking, but listening.

You have to look at how chemistry develops.

Much of my work in biology has been driven by my early training in chemistry. When studying a new chemical compound, the first and most important thing is to determine its detailed molecular structure.

There's nothing colder than chemistry.

Molecular chemistry, the chemistry of the covalent bond, is concerned with uncovering and mastering the rules that govern the structures, properties and transformations of molecular species.

As early as 1912, we worked on the problem of the hydrogenation of organic substances with the aid of highly compressed hydrogen.

As soon as we touch the complex processes that go on in a living thing, be it plant or animal, we are at once forced to use the methods of this science [Chemistry / Physics]. No longer will the microscope, the kymograph, the scalpel avail for the complete solution of the problem…. the investigator must associate himself with those who have labored in fields where molecules and atoms, rather than multicellular tissues or even unicellular organisms, are the units of study.

It's all about chemistry. Talent alone won't get it done.

I do not know whether you are fond of chemical reading. There are some things in this science worth reading.

Every aspect of the world today - even politics and international relations - is affected by chemistry.

Knowing without seeing is at the heart of chemistry.

Chemistry on film is like chemistry in real life, it's either there or it isn't.

Chemistry is a hard thing. I don't think you can force it, and it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to have great chemistry outside of work. It's just something that sparks on screen or doesn't.

The chemistry involved made everything Factory did quite special.

I have always been an avid reader of chemical literature, eager for what is new.

But the nature of my main work in chemistry can be better represented by more than 280 English publications, of which roughly 200 concern the theory of chemical reactions and related subjects.

I had a great chemistry teacher and found it really interesting to learn how things are made up and how they work.

Chemists have always been in the business of taking atoms and putting them together with other atoms with precisely defined connections.

If you had to sum up chemistry in one sentence, it might be this: Atoms need to have full shells of electrons to feel satisfied, and different elements steal, shed, or borrow different numbers of electrons to achieve a full shell.

In 1967, I had formed a collaboration with Hermann Eggerer, then of Muenchen, and together, we solved the problem of the 'asymmetric methyl group' and applied the solution in some of the many ways that have proved possible.