(Swedish chemist, engineer, inventor, businessman, and philanthropist) 21 October 1833 - 10 December 1896
Alfred Nobel
Lying is the greatest of all sins.
This might have ended in the usual manner, And brought the joys and griefs of wedded life; But it was not so ordained: another bridegroom had stronger claims – she’s wedded to her grave.
Worry is the stomach’s worst poison.
I am a misanthrope yet utterly benevolent.
I have not the slightest pretension to call my verses poetry; I write now and then for no other purpose than to relieve depression or to improve my English.
The truthful man is usually a liar.
Second to agriculture, humbug is the biggest industry of our age.
The only true solution would be a convention under which all the governments would bind themselves to defend collectively any country that was attacked.
One can state, without exaggeration, that the observation of and the search for similarities and differences are the basis of all human knowledge.
I am not aware that I have deserved any notoriety, and I have no taste for its buzz.
Lawyers have to make a living, and can only do so by inducing people to believe that a straight line is crooked.
My dynamite will sooner lead to peace than a thousand world conventions. As soon as men will find that in one instant, whole armies can be utterly destroyed, they surely will abide by golden peace.
The best excuse for the fallen ones is that Madame Justice herself is one of them.
Nature is man’s teacher. She unfolds her treasures to his search, unseals his eye, illumes his mind, and purifies his heart; an influence breathes from all the sights and sounds of her existence.
Self-respect without the respect of others is like a jewel that will not stand the daylight.
The day when two army corps can annihilate each other in one second, all civilized nations, it is to be hoped, will recoil from war and discharge their troops.
It is not sufficient to be worthy of respect in order to be respected.
A recluse without books and ink is already in life a dead man.
Home is where I work and I work everywhere.
I would not leave anything to a man of action as he would be tempted to give up work; on the other hand, I would like to help dreamers as they find it difficult to get on in life.
For me writing biographies is impossible, unless they are brief and concise, and these are, I feel, the most eloquent.
It is my express wish that in awarding the [Nobel Prizes] no consideration be given to the nationality of the candidates, but that the most worthy shall receive the prize, whether he be Scandinavian or not.
The savants will write excellent volumes. There will be laureates. But wars will continue just the same until the forces of the circumstances render them impossible.
Justice is to be found only in the imagination.
Kant’s style is so heavy that after his pure reason, the reader longs for unreasonableness.
I intend to leave after my death a large fund for the promotion of the peace idea, but I am skeptical as to its results.
Contentment is the only real wealth.
The first time I saw nitroglycerine was at the beginning of the Crimean War. Professor Zinin in St. Petersburg exhibited some to my father and me, and struck some on an anvil to show that only the part touched by the hammer exploded without spreading.
Hope is nature’s veil for hiding truth’s nakedness.
For my part, I wish all guns with their belongings and everything could be sent to hell, which is the proper place for their exhibition and use.
I am a misanthrope and yet utterly benevolent, have more than one screw loose yet am a super-idealist who digests philosophy more efficiently than food.
Good wishes alone will not ensure peace.
If I have a thousand ideas and only one turns out to be good, I am satisfied.
A heart can no more be forced to love than a stomach can be forced to digest food by persuasion.
We build upon the sand, and the older we become, the more unstable this foundation becomes.
