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

If I have a thousand ideas and only one turns out to be good, I am satisfied.

Contentment is the only real wealth.

I am a misanthrope yet utterly benevolent.

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 only true solution would be a convention under which all the governments would bind themselves to defend collectively any country that was attacked.

Lying is the greatest of all sins.

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.

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.

God cannot be sensed as a second thought, as an explanation of the origin of the universe. He is either the first and the last, or just another concept.

An actor must interpret life, and in order to do so must be willing to accept all the experiences life has to offer.

When an actor plays a scene exactly the way a director orders, it isn’t acting. It’s following instructions. Anyone with the physical qualifications can do that.

Set all things in their own peculiar place, and know that order is the greatest grace.

Men have always looked before and after, and rebelled against the existing order. But for their divine discontent, men would not have been men, and there would have been no progress in human affairs.

If the faults of men in orders are only to be judged among themselves, they are all in some sort parties; for, since they say the honour of their order is concerned in every member of it, how can we be sure that they will be impartial judges?

God has to be temporarily cruel in order to be permanently kind.

In order to prove a friend to one’s guests, frugality must reign in one’s meals; and, according to an ancient saying, one must eat to live, not live to eat.