Linus Pauling: Substance

“Just think of the differences today. A young person gets interested in chemistry and is given a chemical set. But it doesn't contain potassium cyanide. It doesn't even contain copper sulfate or anything else interesting because all the interesting chemicals are considered dangerous substances.”

Linus Pauling

Linus Pauling In His Own Words (1995) by Barbara Marinacci, p. 29.
1990s
Context: Just think of the differences today. A young person gets interested in chemistry and is given a chemical set. But it doesn't contain potassium cyanide. It doesn't even contain copper sulfate or anything else interesting because all the interesting chemicals are considered dangerous substances. Therefore, these budding young chemists don't get a chance to do anything engrossing with their chemistry sets. As I look back, I think it is pretty remarkable that Mr. Ziegler, this friend of the family, would have so easily turned over one-third of an ounce of potassium cyanide to me, an eleven-year-old boy.

Thinking , Personality

“What astonished me was the very low toxicity of a substance that has such very great physiological power.”

Linus Pauling

Statement about vitamin B3, (either niacin or niacinamide), in How to Live Longer and Feel Better (1986), Avon Books, , p. 24.
1990s
Context: What astonished me was the very low toxicity of a substance that has such very great physiological power. A little pinch, 5 mg, every day, is enough to keep a person from dying of pellagra, but it is so lacking in toxicity that ten thousand times as much can be taken without harm.

“A substance showing resonance between two or more valence-bond structures does not contain molecules with the configurations and properties usually associated with these structures.”

Linus Pauling

The Nature of Chemical Bond (1939), Ch 14. A Summarizing Discussion of Resonance and Its Significance for Chemistry.

“We may, I believe, anticipate that the chemist of the future who is interested in the structure of proteins, nucleic acids, polysaccharides, and other complex substances with high molecular weight will come to rely upon a new structural chemistry, involving precise geometrical relationships among the atoms in the molecules and the rigorous application of the new structural principles, and that great progress will be made, through this technique, in the attack, by chemical methods, on the problems of biology and medicine.”

Linus Pauling

Nobel Lecture (11 December 1954).
1940s-1960s

Problem , Future