When visiting the Nobel Museum in Gamla Stan, Stockholm, you will find yourself under the wise gazes of the portraits of the Nobel Prize winners. One feels a strong sense of astonishment of their achievements, appreciation for their capacity of intelligence and inspiration from the significant legacies they have left. The extensive archive collection of the prize winners paints you a picture of the lasting and valuable impact that these achievements have on our world. One is left to think how the world would be like without these people. Their legacies will inspire the very necessary dedication, motivation and hard work needed to achieve something remarkable. Their successes exemplifies how ones efforts can be manifested into reality with very positive consequences. The power of these past achievements can be a great source of inspiration for future generations to strive for a better world, which is the responsibility and challenge that we hold as the future adults of the planet. Our role as young people is to work to add to the storehouse of the positive impacts of exceptional people. Displaying the legacies of the Nobel prize winners will give young people the confidence to create positive change ourselves. Adults can play a vital role here by displaying an interest and admiration of their work.
A legacy is left behind when your life has shaped others; be it millions or only one living being. Someone shapes another through the example that they set through their actions. As Ghandi would say, one has to be the change one wishes to see. This will cause someone else to live by the example set by you. Legacies are infinite, immaterial and transcend the death of the legacy holder by other people adopting the example which they once set. One has created a legacy if you have left the world in a better state than how you left it. Everyone has a legacy to leave now matter how recognised it may become. Anything from an act of kindness to work which leads to winning the Nobel Prize has its precious place in our world. Since legacies are both infinite, impactful and leads to someone's else's legacy, consciously live by setting an example you believe is reflective of the legacy which you wish to leave and you wish for others to follow.
Words relevant to these ideas from the Nobel Prize winners themselves:
"Never was there a time in my life when I had so much to live for and so much to die for"
-Frederick Banting, Medicine 1923
(Diary entry 3 weeks before his death)
"It has been a good journey, well worth making one"
-Winston Churchill, Literature 1953
(Last recorded words)
"We must learn to live together as brothers, or we shall perish together as fools"
-Martin Luther King, Peace 1964
"If I could not have written, I could not have survived. Death was my teacher"
-Nelly Sachs, Literature 1966
"When I was a little boy, they called me a liar, but now that I am grow up they call me a writer"
-Isaac Bashews Singer, Literature1946
"That life is worth living is the essential message and assurance of all art"
-Herman Hesse, Literature 1949 Herbert Simon, Economics 1978
"Teaching is not entertainment, but it is unlikely to be successful unless it is entertaining"
-Herbert Simon, Economics 1978
"A fool is silent because he has nothing to say, but the wise man is silent because he has too much to say"
-Elie Wiesel, Peace 1986
"Find your own dream. Keep this dream and take good care of it and then sometime you will accomplish something"
-Koichi Tanaka, Chemistry 2002
"I have had dreams and I have had nightmares. It is because of my dreams that I have overcome my nightmares"
-Linus Pauling, Chemistry 1962
"I seek in my writing to hold back time so that the present is not forgotten"
-Günter
