Alfred Nobel Quotes Proverbs, and Aphorisms
- October 21, 1833 – December 10, 1896
- Born in Sweden
- Inventor, chemist, businessman
Alfred Nobel was a Swedish chemist, engineer, and inventor best known for inventing dynamite in 1867, which revolutionized construction and warfare. Though he held over 350 patents, his legacy is most enduring through the Nobel Prizes, established in his will to honor those who contribute to humanity in fields like peace, literature, and science. Motivated partly by guilt over the destructive use of his inventions, Nobel sought to leave a more positive legacy. While some have debated the morality of his industrial activities, his commitment to recognizing global achievement and progress has made him a lasting figure of scientific and humanitarian inspiration.
- “Justice is to be found only in imagination.”
- “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.”
- “The truthful man is usually a liar.”
- “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.”
- “Lawyers have to make a living, and can only do so by inducing people to believe that a straight line is crooked.”
- “A recluse without books and ink is already in life a dead man.”
- “Lying is the greatest of all sins.”
- “If I have a thousand ideas and only one turns out to be good, I am satisfied.”
- “Kant’s style is so heavy that after his pure reason, the reader longs for unreasonableness.”
- “The first time I saw nitroglycerine was in 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.”
- “One can state, without exaggeration, that the observation of and the search for similarities and differences are the basis of all human knowledge.”
- “A heart can no more be forced to love than a stomach can be forced to digest food by persuasion.”
- “On the day when two army corps may mutually annihilate each other in a second, probably all civilized nations will recoil with horror and disband their troops.”
- “It is my express wish that in awarding the 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.”
- “Hope is nature’s veil for hiding truth’s nakedness.”
- “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.”
- “Worry is the stomach’s worst poison.”
- “Home is where I work, and I work everywhere.”
- “Contentment is the only real wealth.”
- “Good wishes alone will not ensure peace.”
- “For me writing biographies is impossible, unless they are brief and concise, and these are, I feel, the most eloquent.”
- “Second to agriculture, humbug is the biggest industry of our age.”