The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1965
Robert B. Woodward
Robert B. Woodward's speech at the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm, December 10, 1965
Your Majesty, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies
and Gentlemen.
We are told that the Nobel festivities are a celebration of
achievement. Therefore, I hope it will be regarded as appropriate
for me to express my feeling that the things my fellow laureates
and I have experienced here - the splendid and obviously so
heart-felt hospitality, the magnificent ceremonies, and the
unparalleled sense of occasion - all of these are in themselves
achievements of the first rank. It is a high privilege for me to
be a participant in this great occasion, and in many ways it
cannot but be pleasant. But that pleasure is mixed with some
concern, a concern which must have been shared by many, if not
all, who have stood in this place. Can anyone deserve so
concentrated an accolade? That concern for me is lessened if it
is not suppressed by my awareness that my work has been done in
close association with more than two hundred and fifty men and
women. With them I have shared many challenges, surprises and
pleasures, and their hands, their minds, and their hearts have
brought me here tonight. And I am glad to have this opportunity
to say in this very public place that they share this honor with
me. But even this thought in a way gives rise to another concern.
Alfred Nobel intended his prizes to be awarded for personal
achievement. If I search for my personal achievement, it may be
that I have led these men and women - and perhaps in some measure
all organic chemists - to the higher ground of a greater
appreciation of the power, and above all of the beauty of their
science. If I have done this during the last almost thirty years,
I have done it in circumstances which have been enormously
exciting and quite rewarding enough in themselves. Beyond that,
to have all this is somehow beyond one's dreams. For it, I thank
you one and all.
From Les Prix Nobel en 1965, [Nobel Foundation], Stockholm, 1966
Copyright © The Nobel Foundation 1965
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