"Physical science enjoys the distinction of being the most fundamental of the experimental sciences, and its laws are obeyed universally, so far as is known, not merely by inanimate things, but also by living organisms, in their minutest parts, as single individuals, and also as whole communities. It results from this that, however complicated a series of phenomena may be and however many other sciences may enter into its complete presentation, the purely physical aspect, or the application of the known laws of matter and energy, can always be legitimately separated from the other aspects." (Frederick Soddy, "Matter and Energy", 1912)
"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, "Matter and Energy", 1912)
"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, "Matter and Energy", 1912)
"For a modern ruler the laws of conservation and transformation of energy, when the vivifing stream takes its source, the ways it wends its course in nature, and how, under wisdom and knowledge, it may be intertwined with human destiny, instead of careering headlong to the ocean, are a study at least as pregnant with consequences to life as any lesson taught by the long unscientific history of man." (Frederick Soddy, "Science and Life", 1920)
"One of the main duties of science is the correlation of phenomena, apparently disconnected and even contradictory." (Frederick Soddy, "Structure of the Atom", 1920)
"Radioactivity is a new primary science owing allegiance neither to physics nor chemistry, as these sciences were understood before its advent, because it is concerned with a knowledge of the elementary atoms themselves of a character so fundamental and intimate that the old laws of physics and chemistry, concerned almost wholly with external relationships, do not suffice." (Frederick Soddy, "Structure of the Atom", 1920)
"The history of man is dominated by, and reflects, the amount of available energy." (Frederick Soddy, "Science and Life", 1920)
"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, [Nobel prize speech] 1922)
"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 [attributed])
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