“Let me tell you the secret of such so-called successes as there have been in my life, and here I believe I give you really good advice. It was to burn my boats and demolish my bridges behind me. Then one loses no time in looking behind, when one should have quite enough to do in looking ahead…”

— Fridtjof Nansen

Rectorial address delivered at St. Andrews University, 3 November 1926. Translated in [Nansen, Fridtjof, Adventure, and other papers, https://books.google.com/books?id=G6snAQAAMAAJ, 1927, Books for Libraries Press, 27]

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Fridtjof Nansen 4

Norwegian polar explorer and Nobel Peace Prize laureate 1861–1930

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