On April 28, , who, along with his beloved wife, Isabel, is among ý ý ’s most generous benefactors, would have turned 100 years old. As we mark this milestone, we remember him in his own words – a 1986 convocation address in which he shared what he learned at Queen ý ’s, his secret to a happy life, and the value of helping others.
I am especially happy to be awarded the degree of LLD, Doctor of Laws, because I have sometimes secretly wished that I were a lawyer, and my good friends know how I have always enjoyed a fight when I knew – or thought I knew – that I was right.
Today, I want to talk to you very personally about what Queen ý ’s has meant to me – how it has affected, nay, changed my life – and to share with you what I think is essential for a truly happy life.
To many people, a university is the place where you acquire a profession. And of course, at Queen ý ’s I became a chemist – good enough to get into graduate school at Harvard, and to start a chemical company.
But Queen ý ’s taught me more – it changed my outlook in very personal ways.
My first impressions of Canada were truly mistaken. From the time I came to [the internment camp in] Canada in July of 1940 until I came to Queen ý ’s on 15 November, 1941, I thought that Canadians were largely dishonest and uncivilized. But the great majority of Queen ý ’s people – students and academics – were decent and warm-hearted people – that I learned very quickly.
What is the best advice I can give you today? In life, most of us make two decisions that are far more important than any others. The choice of profession and the choice of our mate. I am reminded of the saying of one of the world ý ’s ablest chemists, Vladimir Prelog, who celebrated his 80th birthday this year. Asked about happiness, he said, ‘If you want to be happy for an hour, buy a bottle of wine; if you want to be happy for a week, slaughter a pig; if you want to be happy for a year, get married; if you want to be happy for your life, enjoy your work: To which I would add, ‘Enjoy your work and find a mate with whom you can share everything, and you will be as close to paradise as you can be: As I am. By a happy coincidence, today is Isabel ý ’s 60th birthday. We met on a boat from Quebec to Liverpool in 1949, and it took me nine days to propose. Today I wonder why it took me so long – I just had not proposed to a girl before and so I was a bit slow. The only flaw I discovered in Isabel in all these years was her going to the University of Toronto. None of us is perfect.
A great many Queen ý ’s people have helped me, and I have tried to repay those many acts of kindness by helping others. At the end of my days, I pray that I will have succeeded as Queen ý ’s succeeded with me – in helping others in their professions, in their perspectives, in their realization of their potential. The three P ý ’s through Q – profession, perspective, potential through Queen ý ’s.
– Edited from the original transcript, Nov. 1, 1986
