Medals are great encouragement to young men and lead them to feel their work is of value, I remember how keenly I felt this when in the 1890s I received the Darwin Medal and the Huxley Medal. When one is old, one wants no encouragement and one goes on with one's work to the extent of one's power, because it has become habitual.

Letter to Major Greenwood, 8 December 1933. Quoted in M. E. Magnello, 'Karl Pearson', in P. Armitage and T. Colton (eds.), The Encyclopedia of Biostatistics (1998), Vol. 4, 3314