Alfred Nobel

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.

Justice is to be found only in imagination.

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.

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.

A recluse without books and ink is already in life a dead man.

One can state, without exaggeration, that the observation of and the search for similarities and differences are the basis of all human knowledge.

Lawyers have to make a living, and can only do so by inducing people to believe that a straight line is crooked.

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.

Good wishes alone will not ensure peace.

Contentment is the only real wealth.

Hope is nature's veil for hiding truth's nakedness.