Linus Pauling — "I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure."
I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.
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
"The scientific method is a never-ending process of observation, hypothesis, experiment, and revision."
"I have always been a rebel, and I believe that it is important to challenge authority."
"I'm just a simple chemist."
"I have always been interested in the human body and how it works."
"The only thing that stands between a man and what he wants from life is often merely the will to try it and the faith to believe that it is possible."
Verification
Unverifiable
Found in 1 providers: deepseek
1 source checked
Understanding this quote
What it means
Satisfaction at an enemy's death without personal guilt — this is pure schadenfreude delivered with wit. The speaker admits harboring real animosity toward specific people yet maintained enough restraint to never act on it. Reading their obituary becomes a quiet victory. It normalizes a feeling most people hide: relief, even delight, when someone who made your life harder finally disappears from it permanently.
Relevance to Linus Pauling
Pauling accumulated formidable enemies: FBI director Hoover surveilled him for decades, the Senate hauled him before McCarthy-era committees, and the State Department revoked his passport in 1952. Scientific rivals dismissed his vitamin C research. Yet he outlived most of them, collecting two Nobel Prizes along the way. This wry confession of obituary-reading pleasure fits a man who endured decades of institutional hostility and still watched his persecutors fade into history.
The era
Pauling reached prominence during the Cold War, when scientists who opposed nuclear weapons faced government retaliation. McCarthyism labeled peace activists as communist sympathizers; his passport was seized to prevent him attending a Royal Society event in 1952. He spent years under FBI surveillance. In that climate, prominent bureaucrats who hounded dissenting scientists did eventually die, and for those who survived the era's paranoia, their obituaries carried genuine weight.
AI-generated insights based on extensive research and information for context. Factual errors? Email [email protected].