Well, I thought, that's nice of the old guy to say that, but I'm a little skeptical myself. And as the years went by, I thought, I don't do the sort of work for which Nobel Prizes are given.
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"I think that the formation of [DNA's] structure by Watson and Crick may turn out to be the greatest developments in the field of molecular genetics in recent years."
"I believe that the pursuit of knowledge is one of the most noble endeavors of humanity."
"The most important quality for a scientist is imagination."
"The only way to get a good idea is to get a lot of ideas and throw the bad ones away."
"I have spent a good deal of my life trying to get people to eat more vitamin C."
Reflecting on early praise and his perception of Nobel-worthy work
Date: 1977 (NOVA Interview)
Self-DeprecatingFound in 1 providers: gemini
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A frank admission of self-doubt wrapped in self-deprecating humor. Someone predicted Pauling would win a Nobel, and he brushed it off as polite flattery. As years passed, he convinced himself his work wasn't prize-caliber. The twist: he won not one but two Nobel Prizes—Chemistry in 1954 and Peace in 1962—making this a striking reminder that even transformative thinkers routinely misjudge the significance of their own contributions.
Pauling's modesty reflects someone who worked at the edge of disciplines—applying quantum mechanics to molecular structure—in ways that felt theoretical rather than celebrated. His chemical bond work rewired how chemists understood matter, and his anti-nuclear activism made him a political dissident. He remains the only person to win two unshared Nobel Prizes, yet this quote shows he genuinely doubted his work matched the prize's prestige, a dissonance that defined his restless, self-critical character.
Pauling's career stretched from the 1920s through the Cold War, a period when the Nobel Prize in Science was hardening into its modern mythology. Post-Hiroshima, scientists faced new pressure to justify their moral relevance alongside their discoveries. Pauling's anti-nuclear testing campaign in the late 1950s was deeply controversial—the U.S. government revoked his passport. Winning the Peace Prize in 1962, the year the Limited Test Ban Treaty was signed, validated a stance many colleagues had considered career suicide.
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