Science Quote by Frederick Soddy

Gratitude is the official posture here, but Soddy is really staging a quiet rebellion against the Nobel myth: the lone genius having a private epiphany, then emerging to collect history’s trophy. His opening move, "In the first place", sounds procedural, almost bureaucratic, as if he’s filing a report rather than basking in acclaim. That dryness matters. It lowers the temperature of the ceremony and shifts attention from spectacle to process.

The key verb is "shown me". Preparation, not inspiration, is what reveals the truth: science is crowded. By admitting that others "share with me" and sometimes "have anticipated me", Soddy punctures the prize’s central narrative while still honoring it. The line is diplomatically engineered. "Often, indeed" tightens the screw: he’s not offering a token nod to predecessors; he’s acknowledging real overlap and priority disputes, the stuff that can sour labs and careers. Yet he frames it as discovery rather than complaint, making humility do the work of critique.

Context sharpens the stakes. Soddy’s era was one in which radioactivity and atomic theory were racing forward across multiple countries, with credit and naming rights contested in real time. His phrasing reads like a scientist trying to keep the record honest without detonating institutional politics onstage. Subtext: if the Nobel machine insists on a single face for collective work, at least the laureate can smuggle in the truth during the acceptance speech.