Linus Pauling — "I am not interested in fame or fortune. I am interested in truth."
I am not interested in fame or fortune. I am interested in truth.
Get This Quote & Author's Image Illustrated On:
Click any product to generate a realistic preview. Up to 3 at a time.
* Initial load can take up to 90 seconds — revising the preview in another color is nearly instant.
Kitchen
Apparel
Other
More from Linus Pauling
"I have always been a curious person, and I believe that curiosity is the key to discovery."
"Do you think that an American who insists on making up his own mind, who objects to being told what to do, to being pushed around by officious officials, is thereby made un-American? I do not. I think…"
"The most important thing in science is to ask the right questions."
"To awaken an interest in chemistry in students we mustn't make the courses consist entirely of explanations, forgetting to mention what there is to be explained."
"I am an optimist. I believe that the human race will solve its problems."
Verification
Unverifiable
Found in 1 providers: grok
1 source checked
Understanding this quote
What it means
The speaker prioritizes discovering what is actually real and correct over personal gain or recognition. Fame brings attention, fortune brings comfort, but neither reveals how the world truly works. Truth demands rigorous, honest inquiry regardless of reward or consequence. This is a declaration that intellectual integrity and factual accuracy matter more than the social or financial benefits that sometimes accompany great achievement.
Relevance to Linus Pauling
Pauling won two unshared Nobel Prizes—Chemistry in 1954 and Peace in 1962—yet remained deeply controversial for his late-career advocacy of vitamin C megadosing and his anti-nuclear activism during McCarthyism. He risked his reputation and passport fighting for what he believed was true. His pursuit of chemical bond theory and protein structure wasn't driven by acclaim but by obsessive curiosity about molecular reality.
The era
Pauling worked through mid-20th century America, when Cold War pressures pushed scientists toward weapons research and ideological conformity. McCarthyism threatened careers for dissent. The race to unlock DNA, develop nuclear weapons, and advance pharmaceutical science created enormous commercial and political incentives that could corrupt scientific objectivity. Pauling's insistence on truth over fortune was a pointed rebuke of that era's corrupting pressures on science.
AI-generated insights based on extensive research and information for context. Factual errors? Email [email protected].