“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.”

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.

For me writing biographies is impossible, unless they are brief and concise, and these are, I feel, the most eloquent.

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

It is not sufficient to be worthy of respect in order to be respected.

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.

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.

A heart can no more be forced to love than a stomach can be forced to digest food by persuasion.

The truthful man is usually a liar.

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

Good wishes alone will not ensure peace.

My 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.

I am not aware that I have deserved any notoriey, and I have no taste for its buzz.

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

Perhaps my dynamite plants will put an end to war sooner than your [pacifist] congresses. On the day two army corps can annihilate each other in one second all civilized nations will recoil from war in horror.

Justice is to be found only in the imagination.

I don’t think that work ever really destroyed anybody. I think that lack of work destroys them a hell of a lot more.

And I am still alive-what though, my damnation is eternal. A man who deliberately mutilates himself is truly damned, is he not? I believe that I am in hell, therefore I am.

Maybe I’ve dragged myself through the mud since then, but even mud hardens beneath your shoes. I must be standing on a mountain of it by now. And no one can touch me from way the hell up here.

Some men can get results if kindly encouraged, but give me the kind that do things in spite of hell.

Would that God would make hell so real to us that we cannot rest; Heaven so real that we must have men there.

The man who gets me is getting one hell of a woman.

That’s precisely the question everyone should be asking-why the hell not? – Why not you, why not now.

Shall we all be saved? Shall we go to Heaven? Alas, my children, we do not know at all! But I tremble when I see so many souls lost these days. See, they fall into Hell as leaves fall from the trees at the approach of winter.